


Nothing is Lost Forever

by lexa_deserved_better101



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Angst, Clexa, F/F, Slow Burn, Soldier!Lexa, There will be more characters as I go on, These are just the ones I have so far, Zombie Apocalypse
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-11
Updated: 2018-04-20
Packaged: 2019-03-29 17:44:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 14
Words: 98,518
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13932099
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lexa_deserved_better101/pseuds/lexa_deserved_better101
Summary: Clarke goes into a coma for a month and when she wakes up, she is shocked to discover that the zombie apocalypse has begun. Faced with having to survive in a cruel and violent world, she feels relieved when she meets a fellow survivor named Lexa who seems made for survival.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first fanfiction I've ever written so I hope you all like it. It's inspired by The Walking Dead but it's much gayer :) The first chapter is just the setup. Lexa is introduced in the second chapter. try to give it a chance! (my title is inspired by Angels in America!

Clarke ran down the stairs of the apartment building she lived in, desperate to get to work on time. She had slept right through her alarm and now she was surely going to arrive late. Pike, her manager, absolutely despised tardiness above all else. In fact, if you’re late, it better be because somebody died, because anything less than that is utterly unacceptable. Although, knowing Pike, one of his employees could have a heart attack and he’d still expect them to clock in on the dot, not a minute earlier, and not a minute later. Somehow she got the sense that he had a particular dislike for her specifically and she didn’t want to add any kindling to the fire. It’s not like she loved her job working at a Starbucks but it was close to campus and it paid decently enough so that she had some money for things her mom would never finance: mostly art supplies. To Dr. Abby Griffen, art was a distraction from Clarke’s studies to become a surgeon, just like her. When Clarke was a kid and had developed a passion for drawing, her mom had been encouraging, thinking it was just a little hobby that most kids partake in at one time or another. But then in high school when Clarke became much more serious in her interest, Abby, sensing a threat to her hopes of Clarke being a doctor, had cracked down on it, making it known to Clarke that being an artist was not a viable career and that she could never hope to be successful if she tried going down that path. Clarke pushed back at first but losing her father took all the fight out of her. It didn’t seem worth it to her to create rifts between her and her only remaining parent over the subject. Clarke reasoned that being a doctor wouldn’t be the worst job; she does, in fact, love the idea of being able to help others… but even so, there’s always been a pang in her heart at the prospect of her artistic talents being pushed into the sidelines, especially with the knowledge that once she starts medical school, and then goes through her internship, she’ll hardly have much time for art, even as a hobby. So she wanted to take advantage of the time she had now to create art as much as she could. Thus, she got a part-time job at Starbucks to help pay for the supplies she needed. And it was important to her that she kept that job. That’s how she found herself running down the sidewalk, and that’s how she found herself running across the street, not bothering to look both ways because her light was green, she had the right of way, but to the man speeding down the street, in his own desperation to get where he needed to go a red light hardly mattered. That’s how Clarke found herself being thrown through the air, blacking out before she ever hit the ground.

___________________________________________________

Clarke came to an indeterminate amount of time later, eyes opening up begrudgingly as if there were small weights attached to them, holding them down. Her surroundings were blurry, out of focus at first but gradually, her vision cleared and she saw she was in a private hospital room. Sterile and colorless, some wilted flowers on her bedside table. Everything was quiet and Clarke noticed with some apprehension, that the heart rate monitor beside her was blank. A power outage? But where was the generator that is supposed to kick on in any hospital in the case of a power outage? 

“Hello?” Clarke yelled out. “Nurse! Doctor! Anyone!”  
Clarke leaned back with a groan. What was happening? Why was she here? She remembered rushing to get to work and then… nothing. Until waking up just now. It was like someone had gone into her memories with a pair of scissors and cut out the period between then and now. She took a few deep breaths, trying to still the panic building in her mind. Clarke thought back to the last thing she remembered. She was running down the stairs of her building, trying to get to work. She got outside and started running down the sidewalk, and then as she ran into the street… 

“I was hit.” 

Fuck. How could she have been so stupid? She found the button you could press that would let the nurse’s know you needed help and pressed it, knowing it was probably fruitless with the power being out. Unless it was just the machine that was busted. The door to her room was closed so she couldn’t see out in the hallway or anything. She sighed, preparing herself to do what she, the daughter of a surgeon, knew she shouldn’t: get out of bed on her own. She sat up in the bed, cautiously, feeling slightly dizzy as she did so. When her head cleared she slowly stood up and immediately fell on the floor, the IV in her arm tugging uncomfortably. Her legs were completely asleep and she could feel them throbbing as she lay there on the ground. How long had she been out for? Clarke groaned.

“Can somebody please help?” She yelled desperately and let out a low whine when it was clear no one was coming. “What the fuck is going on?” 

She started massaging her legs to get the feeling back into them. After a few minutes of this, she grabbed onto the bed and pulled herself into a standing position. She wobbled a little and had to grab onto her IV pole for balance but she was up and that’s what mattered. Clarke slowly made her way to the door. When she turned the knob and pushed it open, it only opened a crack before it stopped. A gurney was barricading her in. What the hell? She leaned her shoulder against the door, putting her whole weight on it, and got the door open, nearly falling into the gurney as she did. The place was quiet. That’s what startled Clarke the most. Hospitals were never quiet. There was always some machine beeping, a phone ringing, a medical professional talking, the sounds of people’s shoes squeaking against the floor, of people writing or typing, of someone slamming down a chart. Always something. But there was no one there to make any noise. The nurse’s station was deserted, the hallways in both directions completely empty. Clarke felt absolutely dumbstruck, unable to comprehend what she was seeing, which was a whole lot of nothing. She looked to the left of her door and saw a slot in the wall that held a chart with her name written on it. Clarke grabbed it, thinking that at least she could answer one of the many questions she had about the situation she found herself in. 

Evidently, she had suffered some internal bleeding and a head injury and the doctors had to put her in a medically induced coma. As startling as that news was, nothing startled her more than seeing the date on her doctor’s most recent update on her condition: March 18th. The day she had been rushing to go to work was early February. Meaning she had been out for at least a month, maybe even more. Clarke dropped the chart at her feet, her head swimming with the realization that she had been essentially dead to the world for a month or even longer. And clearly, there was some fucked up shit going on in this hospital for the medical staff to up and abandon their patients like this. 

“Is anybody here?” She called out. Nothing. Radio silence. 

She walked forward, pushing the cart out of the way to explore the nurse’s station for some answers. The computers were dead but the papers strewn around the desks must have some answers. Nothing.

She wandered down the halls in a slow manner, not wanting to push herself too hard, peeking into every room she could. But most were empty, although quite a few of them were filled with dead bodies lying in hospital beds. Clarke turned away from these rooms fast, bile building up in her stomach, which lost its raging appetite rather quickly. Patients had died. All alone. Because the people who were supposed to take care of them had abandoned them. If Clarke hadn’t woken up from her coma, she would have shared the same fate. By the time she got to another nurse’s station, it was easier for her to walk but she was really feeling the thirst that had been plaguing her from the minute she woke up. She went around the desk, spotting a reusable water bottle sitting beside a computer. By some grace of God, it was half full, and Clarke sipped it slowly, wanting her body to get used to it, before chugging the rest in a few hearty gulps. Then, getting tired of dragging the IV pole around now that she didn’t need it as much for support, she went rifling through the drawers of the nurse’s station until she found some gauze. She took out the IV slowly, grimacing slightly, and immediately pressed the gauze down on the injection site, using some medical tape she found to close it up. Her next order of business was getting the hell out of this clearly deserted hospital and figure out what exactly had happened here. 

On the first floor, there were a lot more bodies, and most of them were not in hospital beds and some weren’t even patients. Hospital staff and patients alike were strewn along the hallway and Clarke’s already considerable unease grew when she saw how mutilated they were like some animal had been at them. What happened here, Clarke asked herself. She couldn’t fathom rushing to get to work in one moment and waking up in a deserted hospital with brutally murdered people filling the hallways in the next. She didn’t want to continue walking, didn’t want to have to dodge puddles of dried blood, step over people who experienced unimaginable suffering in their final moments on earth if the state of their bodies were any indicator. Holding her hospital gown up to her nose only helped block out the sickening stench so much. It was a relief when she finally made it outside and could breathe fresh clean air again. But her relief was short lived when she saw the rows upon rows of bodies lining the parking lot. Military trucks were parked half-hazard. The soldiers that drove them were lying among the dead, which consisted mostly of more hospital workers, patients, and regular civilians. Clarke couldn’t hold her stomach anymore and threw up. A bit of bile was about all her gut could throw up given that’s she’s been in a coma for the past month or so but that didn’t stop her from dry-heaving. By the time she stopped, she was winded. She put her hands on her knees and took a moment to just breathe before walking again. Her goal was to get back to her apartment. The small college town she lived in was more like a ghost town. Cars were stopped in the middle of the street, people lay dead on the sidewalk and most of the businesses had been looted. None of this provided any clues as to what had happened while Clarke had been out. It only confused her more. Two blocks from the hospital and she finally spotted someone walking, well, more like lurching up head. Clarke was too far away to really make out more than the figure’s outline but her heart almost burst at the sight of another human.

“Hey!” She yelled out. She noticed the figure walked more determinedly at the sound of her voice, picking up its speed so they were moving at a fast walk. Clarke figured they were just as excited to see her as she was to see them and she picked up her own walking speed as well. “You have no idea how relieved I am to find someone else in all this mess. I was in the hospital, as you can probably tell from my gown, and I woke up-”

Clarke stopped short as soon as she got a look at the man in front of her. He… He looked human but he didn’t look alive. It was like his body was rotting while he was still living. His arm had a big piece missing and Clarke realized in horror that he was trailing his intestines behind him. How the hell was this guy still alive and walking in the condition he was in? 

“Sir? What happened to you? You look very sick.” To say the least. 

She heard groaning and grunting sounds coming from him and he reached his arms out toward her as she came near. She stepped back reflexively.

“What the hell are you doing?” She cried as he continually tried to grab her, teeth biting at the thin air. 

All she got in reply was more groans, more enthusiastic than the last. Clarke backed away, not sure if her body could handle running at the moment. She already felt like she was going to pass out.

“Look, if this is some kind of disease that’s making you this way; clearly something is going on in this town, maybe I can help you get better, we can help each other, but please don’t hurt me.” Clarke continued to back up, tripping on her feet as she did so, and fell on her butt. The man immediately fell on top of her and Clarke held him back in horror as she realized he was trying to bite her. She screamed as she used every fiber of strength left in her weakened body to push the man off her. She was on her knees when the man regained his footing enough to try to come at her again and she shoved him down again. She felt the adrenaline coursing through her body as she stood up, her fear of this man before her blocking out everything else. She didn’t notice another person come up and screamed when he brought his ax down on the man’s head, splitting it neatly in half in a disgusting squelching noise. 

Clarke looked up at the man as he shook the blood off his weapon. He was an older man, probably in his 60s, his weathered skin telling Clarke he spent a lot of time outside. He had a wide frame but a kind face, which made his recent action almost jarring by comparison.

“You from the hospital?” He asked in a gruff voice. Clarke nodded, unable to form words at the moment. Even if he had swung back the axe he was now casually holding at his side (as if he hadn’t just split a man’s head open with it; and yes, Clarke knew he had saved her life most likely and felt grateful but still; he treated killing him like it was nothing.) and threatened to cut off her head as well, Clarke wasn’t sure she’d be able to say anything to stop him, much less do anything. She was at the mercy of this man, who clearly has no qualms about taking a human life when he feels he has to. 

“Huh, I didn’t think there was anyone alive in there. Figured the ones they weren’t able to transport out of here were dead. Were you living in there? Seems an awful gruesome place to hide out in, if you don’t mind me saying so.”

Clarke could only gape at him. 

“Not much of a talker are you?” He shrugged. “Can’t say I blame you. Given what the world has come to.” He sighed, looking off into the distance for a moment. “Well, I’ll be going then. It’s best not to be on the streets long if you can help it.”

He turned to leave.

“Wait.” Clarke finally managed to find her voice. He stopped, turning to look at her. “What’s going on? What is all this?”

He tilted his head at her, studying her carefully. “What do you mean?”

“Why is everything so deserted? Why is everyone dead? Why was that man trying to eat me and why does he look like he just crawled out of… a cemetery or something? Why does he look like he should be dead?”

It was the man’s turn to gape at her. “You don’t know?”

Clarke slapped her hands down by her sides, exasperated and overwhelmed. “Know? I don’t know anything! One day I’m running to get to work serving people coffee so I can buy art supplies and I guess I’m hit by a fucking car or something and the next thing I know it’s a month later and this town has gone to shit!”

“Jesus wept. You’re telling me you were-”

“In a coma, yes.” Clarke finished. “I woke up an hour or so ago.”

The man was silent for a few moments as he processed this information. “What is your name?”

“Clarke.”

“Clarke, I’m Stu. I own a farm about 30 minutes from town. I almost didn’t come today because my truck was out of gas but then I siphoned some from my neighbor’s car. I suppose it’s a good thing I did.”

“I suppose I’d be dead right now if you hadn’t.” Clarke agreed

“I don’t know about that. You look like you can be tough if the situation calls for it. I’m sure you were thrown for a loop, waking up to what’s really an entirely different world than the one you were in before your accident.”

Clarke nodded. She wasn’t sure what to say.

“In the middle of the street isn’t exactly a great place to have the kind of conversation we need to have, about what’s been going on. And you look like you’re about to pass out at any moment. My farm is fenced in, it’s safe from… from creatures like him.” Stu gestured towards the dead man. “It might sound preposterous, but the world we live in now is preposterous, and the only hope we have to survive in it is if we human folk stick together. So, if you want I can take you back to my farm, I have food you can eat, and a spare bed you can sleep in. I even have running water.”

Clarke tensed. The man seemed like a nice person, and if genuine, the offer was extremely generous but Clarke’s instincts told her that going to a secluded farm with a man she had just met, in a world that seems pretty devoid of other humans at the moment, was a terrible idea. She knew she was desperate, both for information and much-needed rest but she hardly wanted to let those needs blind her to what could prove to be a dangerous situation indeed. Stu must have sensed what was going through Clarke’s mind.

“Please forgive me. I’m so overjoyed at seeing another human that doesn’t want to eat my face off that I forgot what it must sound like, an old man like me asking to take home a young girl like you. It’s smart of you to be hesitant about a situation like that, especially the way the world is now. If this makes you feel better…” He reached behind his back and pulled out an old looking revolver, holding it out to Clarke butt first. “Take this. Maybe it’ll make you feel safer until you feel like you can trust me.” He flipped open the chambers, showing Clarke that it was fully loaded before closing it again. Clarke looked at the gun, hesitantly.

“I’ve never even held a gun before.” She admitted.

“That’s alright. There’s not much to it. You point and you shoot. Given that I have no plans to attack you at the moment, you’re not even going to need it.” He said with a warm smile and a wink, urging the gun towards Clarke. Clarke took it, a bit reluctantly, but knowing it was the smartest choice. 

“Alright, well, let’s get going then. I hate coming to town. On the farm, other than the few walkers, that’s what I’ve taken to calling men like that fellow.” He explained, pointing back towards the dead man as he led Clarke down the street. Clarke winced at the knowledge that there were more like him. “Other than the few walkers that show up outside my fence, it’s almost like nothing happened. That the world is as it always was. Then I come here and it’s like a punch to the gut. At least I watched everything unfurl; I can’t imagine what it’s like for you. Talk about whiplash.”

Stu led Clarke down the street a bit and then stopped at an old beat up pick up truck. He tossed the ax in the bed before climbing into the driver’s seat. Clarke scrambled up to the passenger side, relieved to finally be sitting down. Neither of them talked on the way to Stu’s farm. Clarke wouldn’t have been able to form words if she wanted to; looking out the window, no one would guess that a month ago (although to Clarke it might as well have been a day) this town was bustling with life, mostly young students who went to the university nearby or older people who had grown up here themselves. Now, it was a shell of what it used to be. Windows are broken or boarded up. Stalled cars… and dead bodies everywhere. They drove by multiple lurching figures who tried in vain to follow after them. They all had reached various stages of decay and most had chunks of flesh missing from their bodies. Clarke had seen more blood and innards in the past hour than she had seen in her entire life. She wondered where her friends were and committed to finding out as soon as she could. Now, she wasn’t much help to anyone when she felt ready to pass out at any given second.

By the time Stu drove up a long driveway that was bordered by fields and ended in front of a quaint looking farmhouse, Clarke almost had passed out. The sound of Stu’s door closing brought her off the edge of sleep and she raised her head from the window, looking around herself before opening her own door and practically falling out of the truck. Stu was there to catch her.

“Woah, there. You are dead on your feet.” Stu stopped, thinking. “I think that phrase is a bit too true to life for some of us, isn’t it?” He shook his head as if to clear it. “Let’s get you inside. I’ll make you something to eat and then you can go straight to bed. We can talk tomorrow. Don’t forget your gun.” He reached over Clarke to grab the gun, which had been resting next to her on the seat. He handed it to her absentmindedly and she took it, more by reflex than anything else; she was so exhausted she hardly even cared if this man was taking her to his home to kill her as long as she could sleep first. By the time he led her through the house, which was homey, and to a bedroom in the back, she would have been happy sleeping on a pile of hay. Instead, she was greeted by a cozy looking bed in the middle of the room, which seemed to double as an office of sorts. 

“I’m going to get you some canned soup, ok? I’ll be right back. Don’t fall asleep yet.” He told her before leaving her there.

Clarke stayed where she was, knowing if she entered the room she wouldn’t be able to resist getting into bed and once she did that she would be a goner. She had to lean against the wall, not completely confident in her ability to remain standing, and it felt like a lifetime had passed by the time Stu came back holding a bowl in his hands. He shook her gently to wake her up and handed her the bowl. As soon as she caught the smell of the tomato soup inside, her stomach rumbled and she remembered how hungry she was, her utter exhaustion on hold for the moment. She forgoed the spoon, electing to drink the soup straight from the bowl.

“Careful. Don’t make yourself sick.” Stu said and Clarke slowed down a bit, taking a slight break to let her stomach adjust to having food for the first time in a long time. 

“Thank you, Stu,” Clarke mumbled sincerely as soon as she finished, her exhaustion settling in again now that her hunger was satisfied.

“Sleep well, Clarke.” Stu replied as Clarke crawled into bed. She fell asleep before her head even hit the pillow.  
__________________________________________________________________________

When Clarke woke up, she felt a hundred times better than she had when she fell asleep. Physically that is. Emotionally, she was a wreck. There was a brief moment upon waking when she had forgotten the events of the previous day and had gladly taken in the sight of the endearingly cluttered space around her, until it hit her that she was in a stranger’s house after waking up from a coma to find that the world she had known was gone. She had no idea if the people she loved were ok or what had happened while she had been out. Clarke jerked out of the bed, swaying slightly on her feet at the head rush she felt for standing up too fast. She noticed the gun sitting on the bedside table but decided to leave it there before making her way out of the room, down the hallway and into a kitchen. She still felt somewhat weak on her feet, so she sat down at the kitchen table. A few minutes later, the door on the other side of the room was opening and Stu walked in, carrying a pile of logs.

“Good morning. Or I suppose I should say good afternoon.” He greeted.

“How long was I asleep for?”

“I’d say about twenty hours.”

“Twenty hours?” Clarke asked, surprised. 

“You really needed the sleep. Now, look, why don’t I make you some food and then you can shower and get some regular clothes and we can have that talk? Does that sound good?”

Clarke agreed and Stu made some more soup for the two of them, which Clarke ate readily. Stu showed her the bathroom and told her he’d set out some clothes for her to wear in the bedroom she had slept in. Evidently, he had a niece around her size that had left some clothes here the last she had visited.

It felt so good to take a shower that Clarke stayed under the spray of the hot water long after she had finished cleaning herself. Then the heat started making her lightheaded so she reluctantly exited the shower and crossed the hallway to her bedroom and dressed. She walked down the hallway and found Stu sitting in a recliner chair in the living room. He was smoking a pipe and looking contemplatively at the wall the chair faced. When Clarke turned to see what he was looking at, she saw a framed photograph of Stu and a woman, both of them looking to be about middle-aged when the photo was taken.

“Her name was Betsy. We were married 35 years.” Stu stated and Clarke turned to look at him.

“What happened to her? Did one of those… people get her?” Clarke asked softly.

He shook his head. “She died of cancer ten years ago, long before all this. Is it terrible of me that I’m almost glad she isn’t alive to see what the world has come to?”

“No, I don’t think that’s terrible at all. It sounds like you really loved her.”

“That I did.” He agreed. “That I do.” He corrected with a wistful look in his eye. 

“I’ve lost someone I loved too. My father, when I was 15. He worked as an engineer for this company and he was visiting one of their factory’s when… there was an electrical fire. He died trying to get as many people out of the building as he could.” 

“Then you know,” Stu said softly and they shared an understanding look before Stu gestured towards a chair sitting across from him. “Why don’t you sit? I’m sure you have many questions.”

Clarke sat down and looked around the room, noticing more pictures of Betsy, some of them with Stu, some of them just her, at various ages. She was a beautiful woman, with a face as kind and welcoming as her widowed husband. “What was wrong with that man the other day? The one who was attacking and you…” She trailed off.

He sighed heavily. “It didn’t make any sense; when the first reports of what was happening started coming in, they were met with doubt and skepticism, from doctors, scientists, the government, even the media was fooled. We all were. No one wanted to believe... “ He stopped, redirecting. “It was too late by the time everyone wised up; things had progressed too far to be stopped. The military told everyone to go to the nearest city where they hoped to set up a sanctuary of sorts. I was skeptical of that idea, figuring that a situation like that could go downhill pretty quickly. Besides, I’ve lived on this farm for the last 20 years of my life. I intend to die here before ever leaving it. Troops were sent to various parts around the country to… quarantine the epidemic, if that’s what you can call it. No one seems to know how it started. All I know is that one day dead people… weren’t staying dead. They come back reanimated, to a point. You saw the man yesterday, the state he was in. They can’t talk, their motor skills aren’t great and they have a one-track mind. Feeding. On human flesh. Their bites appear to be contagious. In the beginning, my neighbor, who lives on the land next door to mind, and I stuck together, thinking we’d be safer in numbers. He got bit and developed a high fever, which made him quite delirious before he… before he died. He didn’t stay dead for long. I’ve known this man for 20 years. We used to have him over every holiday. He and I shared many a beer together. He was my friend. And he came this close to biting a chunk out of my neck.” Stu held up his thumb and forefinger an inch apart. “Anyway, it didn’t take long for the world to be overtaken by them. Now, the human race has come full circle, fighting just to survive like our distant ancestors did.” 

Clarke absorbed this as much as she could, but her head felt heavy with the information. People coming back from the dead… and eating other people? How was that possible? It went against everything she had learned as a pre-medical student. People died, and unless they were lucky enough to be revived through epinephrine and electrical charges to the heart, they stayed dead. If they were revived… they came back as they were before dying, not as some cannibalistic monster. And that man before, with his guts trailing behind him, that just was not in the realm of possibility. No siree. But it appeared it was. 

“I know it must be hard for you to process-”

Clarke snorted. That was quite the understatement. 

Clarke spent most of her time alone the rest of the day. Stu seemed to sense that she needed space to think through everything he had told her and kept his distance, which Clarke was thankful for. After an hour or so of contemplating the situation she was in, she finally approached Stu was sitting on a rocking chair on the front porch of his house.

“I need to figure out if my friends are alive. If I have to, I’ll make my way to town on my own. But I would appreciate it immensely if you could take me in.”

Stu nodded. “I would be happy to take you into town.”

Stu gave Clarke a large kitchen knife and the gun, insisting she will need it for protection. Clarke agreed although she felt skeptical about her ability to use either one. “  
“Noise attracts walkers, so it’s best to use more stealthy weapons as much as you can. It also helps save ammo.” Stu explained as they walked to his truck. “You have to aim for the head in either case. The only way to bring them down is damaging their brains; anything else doesn’t even faze them.”

“I don’t know how good I will be at killing them,” Clarke admitted. 

Stu studied her carefully. “You have to remember they’re already dead. Whatever person they used to be before they died and turned… that person is gone.”

“How can you know that? How do you know there isn’t some part of them still in there, that there isn’t any cure that could make them normal again?”

“Forgive me, but you haven’t been living in this world for a month like I have. You… you weren’t there when the hospital was overrun… you didn’t see people, innocent people, being ripped apart. I was. I helped volunteer to get patients out of the hospital when it was overrun. I was lucky to get out of there when I did. Not many others did.”

They were in Stu’s truck, turning onto the road back to town at this point. Clarke clenched her teeth, cringing at the memory of all the dead bodies she had come across in the hospital and outside of it. “That doesn’t mean they aren’t still human, deep down.”

Stu glanced at her, the sadness in his eyes apparent. “A mother was running away with her son. He couldn’t have been more than a toddler. I was with them, intending to bring them to my farm, to safety. I guess she had been scratched by one of the walkers, not even that deep, that’s the scary thing. I had no idea. By the time we got back to the farm, she was pretty sick. I wasn’t sure what was wrong with her, this was before my neighbor died and this was pretty early on in the process, so I wasn’t familiar with what was happening. I figured she had the flu or something. She died the next day. Her son was by her bedside, hadn’t left her side since we got there. She and he talked and talked in the moments she was lucid. It was clear she loved that boy more than anything. Then she turned and I watched in horror as she bit her son, right in the face, the face she had been kissing only 15 minutes before. If I hadn’t pulled her off him, she wouldn’t have stopped. So I’m sorry Clarke, but I just can’t believe that there’s anything human left in those creatures. I just can’t.”

Clarke stared in horror as his tale went on, electing not to argue the point any further. She couldn’t fathom how quickly her life had turned on a dime. It was unreal, knowing that stories like that were now the norm. She didn’t think she’d ever be used to it and she found herself wishing she had never woken up from her coma. 

She directed Stu to campus and he stopped as soon as they reached it, not even bothering to park.

“It’s going to be risky going in here. I’m sure most of the staff and student body evacuated, but there still might be walkers among the halls of the building. We’ll have to be careful.” 

Clarke nodded, getting out of the car with Stu.

“Have your knife and the gun ready.” 

“I think it would be better for both of us if you held the gun. If things get sticky, it’ll be more effective in the hands of someone who actually knows how to use it.” Clarke reasoned and Stu had to agree.

“Alright, but you cannot leave my side. Got it?” 

Clarke nodded, handing him the gun. 

They started walking onto the campus, moving towards the building that held the female dorms. There were two figures up head, figures who immediately started towards them. Clarke recognized their lurching gait from the man yesterday and her heart rate sped up, fear burying itself deep in her gut. 

“What do we do?” She asked.

“There’s only two. We should be able to take them down with ease. It would be good for you to start practicing. No one will last long in this world if they can’t.” 

Clarke swallowed nervously. 

“Just stay calm. I’ll be right there in case things go south, which they won’t. Just remember to go for the head.”

He had his ax in hand, ready to swing, and Clarke held up her knife, albeit much more shakily. 

When they got close enough, Stu buried the ax in the head of the first walker, a decaying woman, dressed in casual wear. While it was hard to tell how old she was, due to her rotting face, she was clearly young and Clarke’s felt a tug at her heart as she collapsed onto the ground. Clarke didn’t have much time to think on the girl, however, given that the other walker, another young looking girl, was coming towards her, the stench nearly bringing tears to her eyes. The walker was groaning and grunting and all of a sudden reached out and grabbed Clarke’s arm, the one not holding the knife. Clarke held her back, her grunts of effort matching the walker’s.

“Use the knife, Clarke!” Stu urged.  
Clarke brought the knife back and brought it forward and it lodged in the walker’s neck just as it leaned forward to bite Clarke’s arm. Blood poured out of the wound but still, the walker struggled against Clarke’s hold.

“The brain, Clarke!” Stu exclaimed, his ax raised, trying to figure out a proper angle to swing it so he wouldn’t hurt Clarke as well as the walker. The two were so close together and they were moving so fast that he couldn’t settle on one.

Clarke cried out in desperation as she pulled the knife out of the walker’s neck, more blood gushing out in the knife’s wake. Seconds later, the knife was knife was plunged into the side of her head and the walker immediately fell down, almost pulling Clarke with her. Clarke let out a heavy breath and bent over, hands on her knees as she cried. The knife was sticking out of the walker’s head, seeming to taunt Clarke even further. She felt a calming hand on her back.

“I’m sorry, Clarke,” Stu said softly. “I know how hard this must be for you. It does get easier, dealing with them.”

“I doubt it.” Clarke gasped between her sobs. 

“It does. Humans can get used to anything, with time.” Stu said.

When Clarke was able to calm down they kept on going and finally reached the dorm. 

“We have to go slow, ok? Keep your weapons ready.” Stu ordered as he opened the door and held it open for Clarke.

The place was deserted and dark, every shadow looking to Clarke like another walker waiting to jump out at them. They heard some thumps behind closed doors, as whoever (or whatever) was at the other side was trying to push its way through the wood to get to them. Otherwise, they encountered nobody else on their way to Raven and Octavia’s dorm. Clarke opened the door slowly and looked around the room, which looked like a mess. Clothes were strewn everywhere and books scattered across the floor. Like someone had torn through the room in a hurry. Clarke wondered if they had gotten out in time and hoped that was the case. Then she realized she had no way of knowing where they had gone. She would probably never see them again. She stepped forward into the room, noticing a picture frame lying on the floor, face down. She picked it up and saw that the picture that used to be there, one of all three of them at the beach, was gone. That made Clarke think that they really had gotten out, and had taken the photo as a keepsake. Tears built up in her eyes and she let them fall, far past caring about appearing strong. If there was ever a time to break down, this was it. She felt a strong but comforting hand on her shoulder and appreciated Stu’s silent support. 

“I think they made it out. I have to believe that. I have to believe that they’re alive somewhere, making it. They’re strong people… they… they’re tough. It’d take a lot to take them down.” 

“I don’t doubt it,” Stu replied.

“Raven’s leg,” Clarke said in realization. “She has metal rods in her leg; she has to walk with a brace. If she needs to run, from walkers, or whatever… Oh god.”

“Hey. The human body is capable of much more than you and I will ever know, especially when it feels threatened. Adrenaline is a powerful force in this world. It allows mothers to lift cars that are trapping their babies. Surely, it can allow your friend to run when the need arises.”

Clarke nodded. “Yeah, yeah you’re right. Raven wouldn’t let anything slow her down. She only ever operates at top speed.” Clarke said with a small laugh.

“Are you ready to go? Or do you need some time?” Stu asked.

Clarke shook her head. “We can go.”

By the time they made it back to the street, Clarke felt exhausted from the emotional upheaval of the day. 

“I think we should make a pit stop to the grocery store, see if there’s anything more we can salvage there that hasn’t already been taken by me or someone else,” Stu said.

“Ok.”

They drove the 10 minutes to the grocery store in silence, and Clarke almost wished she could just stay in the car by the time they got there. But she didn’t want Stu to have to go in alone. So she got out of the car dejectedly, knife still in hand. A walker who had been in the alley between the grocery store and the clothing store next door came stumbling towards Clarke. Clarke raised her knife, trying to feel ready and confident but all she felt was a gnawing fear in her gut as the walker came closer. It reached for her as soon as it came within touching distance of her but before it could do anything, she plunged her knife into its head, cringing at the noise it made as it sank into the walker’s flesh. The walker slumped down on the ground, but Clarke held the knife tightly so it wouldn’t fall down with it. Stu watched this silently, looking almost proud. 

“Come on. We’ll make this quick so we can get back to the farm as soon as possible.”

They walked into the grocery store, which was absolutely ransacked. They walked down aisle by aisle, taking anything that seemed like it could be of some use. By the time they walked out of the store, the basket they were carrying filled with a random assortment of items, Clarke was really starting to feel the weight of everything on her and couldn’t wait to get back so she could take a nap. She thought of her mom and wondered how she was faring in all of this. Clarke hoped she was alive and wished there was some way to reach her to find out. 

She and Stu stopped dead in their tracks at the sight of two men going through Stu’s truck. They were both carrying rifles and at the sound of Clarke and Stu’s approach, they looked up, immediately training their weapons on them. 

“Drop your weapons.” The first man commanded and both Stu and Clarke dropped their respective weapons. While the first man kept his gun pointed at them, the second man came forward to kick away the knife and the ax and frisked Stu, pocketing his revolver that had been stuck in the waistband of his pants. When he got to Clarke he smiled appreciatively at her.

“Look at what we got here, Doug! Fresh meat.” He grabbed her ass in the middle of the frisk and Clarke jerked. The two men laughed and eyed each other excitedly and Clarke felt sick to her stomach. She could see Stu’s eyes flash in anger at the way the two men were currently ribbing about what each man would like to do with Clarke. Neither of them had much time to act before the butt of a gun was whacking them in the head and everything went black.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clarke finds herself in a bit of a sticky situation only to be saved just in time

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter an attempted rape takes place, but nothing comes close to happening. Just thought I'd warn you all so you're prepared.

When Clarke came to, slowly and painfully, noting the throbbing in her head, she was in some field, bordered by trees. There were two tents set up, trash and supplies spread around the make-do campsite. She tried to sit up, only to be pushed roughly back down.

“Stay down, blondie. Unless you want to meet the same fate as grandpa.” A voice jeered. 

When Clarke looked in the other direction she saw Stu’s limp form, sitting right beside her. Tears fell from her eyes and she sobbed.

“You didn’t have to do that! He was a nice man.” Clarke cried out as if the two men would care. She didn’t know what else to say. The first person she had met in all this, a kind man who had offered her his home, was dead, killed by two assholes who would surely kill her too. The only reason she was alive right now was so they could have some “fun” with her. Clarke felt nausea grow in her stomach and she started to panic.

“Hey, calm the fuck down, ok? This will all be over soon.” The man, who had moved so he was in front of her, said. 

“I’m getting tired of hearing this bitch cry. Can we just do this?” The other man replied from Clarke’s other side.

“Yeah but I go first.” The man put down his gun and started undoing his jeans. Clarke tried to get up to run away but he was on her in a flash, holding her legs down with his body and her arms down with his hands. She thrashed under him regardless, not willing to give into him whatsoever.

“Looks like we got ourselves a fighter. I like-” But before he could finish his sentence, blood gurgled out of his mouth and spilled all over Clarke’s face and he slumped forward. Clarke saw the handle of a knife protruding from his back. The other man whipped his head towards the direction the knife had come from, whipping his gun around frantically.

“Who’s there? Come out right fucking now!” He screamed.

There was the sound of snapping twigs from the left and he turned in that direction. Clarke saw a flash of movement come from the other direction and before she knew it, a small but lithe figure was on him, bringing him to the ground, bending his wrists in a way that forced him to relinquish his hold on his weapon, lest his wrists be broken. His attacker (and Clarke’s savior) took hold of it, turning it around so she could use the butt as a bludgeon. After a few hard hits, the man’s face was no longer recognizable as a face and his body went limp. Clarke crawled her way out from under the dead man on top of her, watching as the woman rose from her position on top of the other man, wiping her forehead from the effort. Clarke watched her, enraptured, as she turned around and came towards Clarke, bending down to retrieve her knife from the other man’s back. Had she made to use it on Clarke, Clarke likely would have been powerless to stop her. She was stunned at the scene that had just unfolded in front of her, at how quickly and efficiently this woman had subdued the two men. But the woman didn’t use the sizeable knife on Clarke. Instead, she wiped it clean on the man’s shirt and slid it into the sheath attached to a belt she wore around her waist. Clarke looked up into the greenest eyes she had ever seen, her breath nearly catching at the calm, watchful way they looked down at her. Blood was splattered across the woman’s face but she hardly seemed to notice. Her long brown hair was done up in a pattern of small, intricate braids and Clarke wondered at how this woman found the time to do her hair in the wake of recent events. Something about that spoke to the woman’s strong sense of routine. The way she walked, the way she moved, screamed order, like she was suited to be the commander of an army. Clarke reflected that there were people built for this kind of life, the kind that required you to fight to survive. The two women studied each other for a moment, Clarke noticing the toned muscles in the other girl’s arms, the sharp line of her jaw and her cheekbones. She had tattoos running up both of her arms. Clarke knew this was hardly the time to notice such things but it was hard not to when faced with such beauty. The artist in her yearned to get the image before her down on paper. Then, with no warning, the woman turned away and started walking towards the woods on the far side of the field. Clarke sprang up and immediately jogged to catch up with her.

“Wait!” She called out but the woman kept walking, her back straight, her head turned forward. 

“Just hold on a second.” Clarke insisted and as soon as she got close enough, she reached out her hand and grabbed the woman’s arm in order to still her and in a flash, the woman was turned around, knife retrieved from its holster and Clarke found herself with a knife held against her throat, the woman’s face inches from her, green eyes boring into her. Clarke stared back at her with wide eyes, watching as the woman’s jaw tensed and untensed repeatedly before she withdrew the knife from Clarke’s neck and sheathed it, pushing away from Clarke. 

“You shouldn’t grab at people like that.” She said in a stern, commanding voice. 

“I-I’m sorry. I just. You were walking away and you wouldn’t stop and I just wanted to get you to talk to me.” Clarke rambled. It was hard not to feel nervous under that intense gaze.

“Well, you have my attention. What do you want?” 

“I-you saved me. From those guys.” Clarke stated lamely.

The woman’s eyebrows went up slightly. “Yes?”

“I guess I wanted to say thank you.”

There was a moment of silence. “Ok.” The woman said and turned to walk away again but before she could, Clarke grabbed her arm, not even thinking about it. The woman’s eyes flashed at her in warning and Clarke immediately let go.

“You saved me from those guys and now you’re just going to leave?”

“Yes.” 

Clarke wasn’t sure how to deal with this woman, who was an absolute mystery to her. Clarke thought that if you went through all this trouble to save some stranger, you’d want to stick around a little. 

“You saved me from those guys, when you didn’t have to, which leads me to believe that you’re a good person who cares about others.” The woman snorted at that. “I… just lost the only person I have in this world, to those men. He saved me too. And it seems like you’re alone too.”

The woman rolled her eyes slightly. “Is this the part where you tell me we should stick together?”

“Well… yeah.”

This time her eye roll was more exaggerated. “I’m not what you’d call a team player, so that’s a hard pass.” She walked away again only for Clarke to catch up to her and grab her arm again. The woman stopped with an exasperated sigh and turned around almost begrudgingly. “Do you never learn? Or are you just trying to piss me off?”

Clarke cringed. “I… just. Never mind. Just go. If you don’t want to be here, I don’t want to force you.” Clarke turned away slightly, looking back Stu’s body. She felt a pain in her chest. He was dead. He had shown her a kindness by taking her under his wing and now he was dead. If it wasn’t for her, he wouldn’t have been in town today in the first place. He would have been safe at his farm. But he had readily agreed to take her into town and for what? So she could look at an empty dorm room? And now he was dead. A part of her insisted it wasn’t her fault, that she wasn’t responsible for the terrible actions of those men, but she ignored it. Maybe logically she could know she wasn’t responsible but she felt responsible. She wiped her tears away and turned back, surprise registering on her face at the sight of the woman standing there. She had expected her to be gone by now, given that she was so eager to leave before, but she was standing there, silently watching Clarke as she cried. She looked unsure of what to do or say, but Clarke could see the slight worry in those green eyes. Clarke figured that even when this woman wanted to look stoic, those eyes would betray her. 

“Was he your grandfather?” She asked, her voice softer than it was before.

Clarke shook his head. “No. I only met him yesterday. He saved my life, let me stay at his farm. We only went into town because of me and then we ran into those two.”

She nodded slightly. “Do people save your life a lot?” Her tone was teasing and she had a slight smirk on her face.

Clarke shrugged. “I suppose they do as of late. I-” Clarke paused. “I was in a coma for the last month or so. I only woke up yesterday.”

The woman’s eyes widened at that, her expression that of surprise. 

“I don’t know how to survive in this world. I mean I was a goddamn barista.”

The other woman’s lips quirked up slightly. 

“I think my first order of business will be to bury Stu. The least I can do is give him a proper send off after everything he did for me. Thanks again for saving me. Good luck out there; although something tells me you don’t need luck.” Clarke said with a soft smile before turning away to walk back towards the makeshift camp.

“Wait.” A voice commanded after a few moments and Clarke stopped, turning around to look at the woman questioningly. 

She sighed, looking almost annoyed. “I’ll help you bury him. It’s the least I can do. Then I’ll go my own way. Deal?”

Clarke’s face brightened immediately. She felt much better at not having to bury Stu alone, even if her company would be a complete stranger, who wasn’t much into talking or lending the kind of comfort Clarke was used to. Maybe that was a good thing for Clarke right now. Maybe she needed someone steady she could rely on. Even if it was just for a short time. Plus, she felt much safer in the presence of this woman, who clearly knew how to handle herself.

“Deal. It’s really nice of you to offer.”

The woman shrugged, brushing it off. 

“I’m Clarke, by the way. Clarke Griffen.” Clarke introduced, holding out her hand.

The woman glanced at it almost suspiciously at first before taking it firmly in her own hand, Clarke noticing now strong, yet careful, her grip was. Green eyes met blue before the woman let go of her hand. “Lexa Woods.”

“It’s nice meeting you, even if it is under some very dire circumstances.”

Lexa let out a huff of air, almost amused before walking past Clarke towards the bodies they had left behind. 

Clarke followed reluctantly, dreading having to go near so much death, dreading having to face Stu and deal with his death head on. Memories of her father and his death came flooding through her mind and she felt more tears fall down her face. It had been a closed casket at the memorial; his body had been burnt too badly to allow an open casket. She had never had to come face to face with her father’s death, which she had been grateful for. And while she had only known Stu for a day, he had been kind to her, he had saved her life, and it hurt knowing she was going to have to get up close to his body and bury him personally. 

Lexa had reached Stu first and Clarke sidled up next to her cautiously, trying to prepare herself to look down at Stu and knowing there’s no way anyone could prepare themselves for that. Lexa looked calm but solemn as she watched Clarke, trying to gauge how she was taking this as the woman looked down at her departed friend. Lexa made the decision that she was going to do the brunt of the work, not wanting that responsibility falling on Clarke, whose grief and general distress was already such a burden. Lexa wondered why she even cared about what this stranger could or couldn’t handle and then sidelined that thought process, knowing it wasn’t the time to think about why this random girl, with the bluest eyes she had ever seen, made her table her usual solitary nature. 

“Lexa?” Clarke asked hesitantly.

Lexa hummed to show she was listening.

“I know this might be a lot to ask. But Stu lives on this farm, you see, and he’s lived there for the last 20 years, and I know it’s where he’d prefer to be buried.”

“You want us to take him to this farm?” Lexa asked, making sure she had this clear.

Clarke nodded shyly, blue eyes looking at her pleadingly. 

“Ok,” Lexa replied. “Do you know where it is, how far away it is?”

“I know where it is from Arkadia, the town we were in before these guys… kidnapped us. But I have no idea where either the town or the farm is in relation to here. They knocked us out before transporting us.”

Lexa considered. “I know Arkadia; it’s about thirty minutes from here… with a car. I don’t think we’d be able to walk that distance carrying a dead body.”

Clarke winced and Lexa immediately regretted her choice of words. 

“I’m thinking they probably used Stu’s truck to get us both here. Do you know where the nearest road is? I’m sure we can find it.”

Lexa nodded. “It’s not far from here actually. I suppose we should get to it.” 

Clarke lifted Stu’s legs while Lexa lifted the other side of him. It was a ten-minute walk to the road and by the time they got there, Clarke’s body was screaming from the effort of carrying the body, even with Lexa’s help. Her muscles were still recovering from a month or so of disuse and this was probably the last thing they needed. Lexa seemed like she was handling the weight with relative ease, the muscles in her arms flexing, her face serious as she concentrated on walking backward without tripping over tree roots. 

Sure enough, Stu’s red pick up truck was pulled to the shoulder of the road. Lexa carefully laid Stu’s head and shoulder on the ground so she could open the door to the bed of the truck. Clarke appreciated the gentle, almost reverent way she handled Stu’s body. Together, they lifted him up and placed him gently on the bed of the truck before shutting the door again.

“Fuck. The keys.” Clarke remembered. “They’re probably back at the camp.”

“No problem. Wait here and I’ll go get them. Shouldn’t take me long.” Lexa said and started to leave before Clarke grabbed her arm, something that had become something of a habit with her since meeting this woman half an hour ago. This time Lexa didn’t greet the sudden grab quite so hostile, instead, she raised her eyebrows at Clarke as she pulled her hand away. 

“I-” Clarke started and wasn’t able to finish but it didn’t seem to matter. Lexa’s eyes softened ever so slightly and she seemed to understand what Clarke wanted to say.

“Clarke.” And Clarke felt instantly calmed at the way her name sounded coming out of Lexa’s mouth, her voice soft but firm at the same time, putting more emphasis on the “k” than anyone ever had. “I promise I won’t be gone long. Here.” Lexa took her knife out of its sheath and held it out to Clarke. “Take this in case a biter comes by. Have you killed one before?” 

Clarke nodded, not wanting to tell Lexa she’s only killed two thus far, thinking that this badass warrior type woman would likely find her more pathetic than she probably already does. 

“Good. Take it.” She insisted.

“What about you? Those woods are probably full of them. We’re lucky we didn’t run into any on our way here.”

Lexa shook her head. “Don’t worry about me.”

Clarke took the knife almost reluctantly, intimidated by its size. When she looked up, Lexa was gone and a panic settled in Clarke’s chest. She really did not want to be alone, not right now, not ever, not in the world she had woken up in. She started pacing next to the truck, eyeing the woods nervously, willing Lexa to come out of them. What if she was hurt or killed? That would be the second person to die just for trying to help her and Clarke cursed herself for not offering to go with her to get the keys. What if she was ok and just left Clarke, deciding it was too much trouble to help this random stranger bury someone she had never met? Clarke decided she was sick of waiting, that she wouldn’t be the kind of person who just sat back while others put themselves in danger and she walked forward determinedly, into the woods, holding the knife defensively in front of her. She wasn’t 10 steps in before a walker popped up from her left, startling her. The walker was on her in a flash, her teeth aggressively gnashing at the air in front of Clarke’s face as Clarke held her back with both hands, the knife dropped at her feet. The stench of the walker this close was strong enough to bring tears to Clarke’s eyes as she cried out in fear. The walker was groaning and grunting intensely at being this close to food. Clarke pushed the walker with all the force she had and the walker stumbled back, only to rush forward towards Clarke again. Still, Clarke had enough time to grab the knife at her feet and she plunged it into the walker’s stomach, it being the quickest thing she could reach as the walker charged forward. It didn’t deter the walker in the slightest and Clarke started sliding the knife up, blood and guts spilling out of the slit she was carving in the walker’s abdomen. She didn’t have time to remove the knife and get to her head; if she did, the walker would be on her in a flash so Clarke put all of her muscles into bringing the knife up the walker’s torso. She was stopped slightly when she reached her sternum but Lexa’s knife was sharp and a little more force allowed her to push her way through it and continue the cut until the knife reached her neck. Instinctively, Clarke angled the knife upwards so that it would cut into the part of the neck she knew from her science classes connected the brain to the spinal cord, digging it ever deeper until the walker finally collapsed into a bloody mess at her feet. Clarke was soaked with the walker’s blood, from her hand all the way to her bicep and her shirt was drenched with yet more blood. Clarke dropped the knife in shock at what just happened, a moment that had happened in 5 seconds perhaps but felt like ages to Clarke. She stepped back from the bloody mess at her feet, shellshocked at the sight in front of her, at the blood staining her hands and arm. She hadn’t just done that. 

“Clarke?” Lexa’s voice asked, unable to disguise the surprise in her voice. Clarke looked to the right to see Lexa standing there, keys in hand, green eyes wide and concerned. 

“She… She… she was going to eat me. I-I had no choice.” Clarke stammered out as she started to sob. Lexa stepped towards Clarke.

“I know, Clarke. It’s ok. You did well. You survived. You’re ok.” Lexa soothed, unsure how to handle the situation. She may be able to fight and kill with relative ease when the need arose but dealing with people’s emotions (and her own) had never come easily to her. That’s why she had only ever had one serious relationship her entire life… but Lexa cleared that thought from her mind, trying to focus on the situation in front of her. She cleared all of the thoughts from her head, directing all her concentration towards quickly developing a course of action, which she immediately began executing. 

“I need you to not touch your face, ok? This is important, Clarke. Now, I need you to look at me, ok? Do you see how calm I am?” Lexa tilted her head to the side, trying to get Clarke to meet her gaze. She looked steadily at the shaken girl, making sure her eyes maintained contact with Clarke’s. “Ok, just breathe and look in my eyes. We are going to get out of here and go back to this farm your friend lived at, ok? We’ll get you cleaned up, and then we will bury your friend.” Listing the steps of what they were going to do seemed to calm Clarke and Lexa felt some of her tension dissipate. She could get them both out of this; she had gotten herself and others out of much worse. “But in order to do those things, I need your help, Clarke. I need you to be strong. Can you do that?” Lexa asked her firmly but softly, wanting to instill confidence in the girl but not wanting to put too much pressure on her.

Clarke’s sobbing had quieted to sniffling by now and she nodded, her eyes never leaving Lexa’s.

“I knew you could it, Clarke. Let’s go back to the truck.”

Lexa picked up her knife, shaking it off (making sure to turn away from Clarke when she did) and sheathing it before turning back to Clarke. She placed her hand gingerly on her shoulder, directing Clarke back towards the street. 

She helped Clarke into the passenger seat before climbing around to the driver’s seat and starting the car up. The transmission was stick shift, which wasn’t a problem for Lexa, who had driven stick shift many times. She looked over at Clarke, who was staring out the window, a blank expression on her face. 

“Hey,” Lexa said softly and Clarke turned to look at her. “Can you do me a favor?” 

Clarke furrowed her eyebrows together but nodded.

“Can you keep your eye out for any silver car you see and keep count?” 

Clarke’s brow furrowed even more but she nodded once again.

There were indeed many cars scattered along the road back to town that Lexa had to maneuver around, sometimes even having to go off the road briefly. Clarke busied herself with the task Lexa had set out for her, as asinine as it seemed. Clarke soon realized why Lexa wanted her to count silver cars: it helped focus her mind on something other than the thoughts and images flooding her brain. It kept her in the present, instead of retreating back into the past. 

When they crossed the town line into Arkadia, Lexa looked towards Clarke.

“So, which direction is the farm?”

“If you turn right on Main Street up ahead, and then hook a left on Oak, it leads you to the other side of town, and it’s a straight shot from there to the farm,” Clarke answered.

“Great. Are you still counting silver cars?”

“Yeah, I’m at 20 right now.”

“Good.”

They drove on in silence until Clarke recognized the mailbox at the end of a driveway as Stu’s. She told Lexa to turn down the driveway and Lexa complied, pulling up to in front of the house and getting out of the car at the same time as Clarke. They walked up the porch together and stopped outside the door.

“How are you feeling?” Lexa asked, looking at Clarke warily.

Clarke was looking down at the blood all over her hands, grimacing. “I’ll feel better once I get cleaned up.”

Lexa nodded. “I’ll wait out here while you do. I think I saw a shed around back. I can probably find a shovel in there.”

Clarke nodded, trying not to think to the task ahead of them. It would be better for her to take things one step at a time. Shower and find some clothes to wear, that was her job right now.

So that’s what she did: spending extra time in the shower, applying layers upon layers of soap and still not feeling clean enough. Watching the water turn red at her feet made her stomach coil into knots and she had to take several deep breaths. Just think of it as a super heavy period, Clarke told herself. When she felt she had been here long enough, worrying about the state the generator was in, she finally turned off the water and toweled herself dry. This next part would be hard. She would have to go around Stu’s house to try to find more clothes that his niece had hopefully left behind. She would have to see all the pictures of him and his wife, and the rest of his family that he had around the house. She took a deep breath and told herself, “If I can slice a person’s abdomen open, surely I can find some clothes to wear.” But that only made her feel worse.

She found some clothes that would fit her in the closet in the hallway, which was a blessing. She got dressed in a pair of jeans, and a t-shirt. She had to remind herself to stop in some store in the future to get a bra and underwear, as she couldn’t find any. She noticed a flannel shirt that looked much too big for her hanging up in the closet as well and thought it must be Stu’s. She grabbed it and put it on, buttoning it up a little so it wasn’t so obvious she wasn’t wearing a bra and also appreciating having something of Stu’s as a reminder of him and how kind he had been. That made her remember something else and she reluctantly found her way to his bedroom, trying to ignore the pictures on the dresser. She came in here hoping to find a blanket that she could wrap Stu in and she saw a nice looking quilt laying on the bed. It looked handmade and Clarke hoped his wife had sewn it so that he could be wrapped up in something of hers. She grabbed it, folding it neatly before going outside. When she did, she noticed the truck was gone and panic filled her body at the idea that Lexa had, in fact, abandoned her, until she went around the side of the house where Lexa was shoveling away the dirt under a large tree that offered plenty of shade. She had pulled the truck around the house so that its bed was near the place she was digging at and Clarke let out a breath of relief at knowing Lexa was still here and was currently working hard to dig a grave for a man she didn’t know. She had taken off her the t-shirt she had been wearing, leaving her in a simple tank top. The less modest shirt revealed yet more tattoos and toned muscles in her back that flexed with each movement. Clarke walked forward and stopped when she was behind Lexa, making sure to angle herself so she couldn’t see Stu’s body lying in the truck bed.

“Hey.” Clarke greeted quietly and Lexa turned around, leaning her arm against the shovel, which was planted in the ground at the moment. 

“Hey. How was your shower?”

“I feel a little better now that I’m not covered in blood.” Clarke allowed and Lexa nodded.

“I thought I’d get started with the digging while you were cleaning up.” 

“Let me take over, Lexa. It’s not fair for you to have to do the work when I was the one who knew him.”

Lexa shook her head, holding up her hand to still Clarke. “I insist. I actually don’t mind the work.”

Clarke nodded. “Yeah, I guess it gives you something to other than think about how fucked the situation humanity has found itself in.”

Lexa looked at Clarke evenly and replied with a small shrug before digging again. “I thought this spot was nice, under the tree like this. Is it ok?”

“It’s fine. I don’t think he’ll have any complaints.” Clarke replied with a bite.

Lexa stopped again to look at Clarke warily and Clarke immediately felt bad.

“I’m sorry, Lexa. It’s so kind of you to help me. Really, it means a lot. And it’s sweet that you were trying to pick a nice spot to bury him. I didn’t mean to snap at you. I just-” Tears started to form in her eyes. Clarke didn’t think she had ever cried so much in one day, except for maybe the days following her father’s death. “I wake up one morning, thinking ‘this is just like every other day’, you know? You don’t- You don’t know that the day that will change your entire life is that day, until later. Do you know what I mean? My biggest concern was getting to work on time. Can you believe that? How asinine that is? I needed to get to work on time so I could buy fucking art supplies and now-” She stopped, letting out a short, humorless laugh. “Now the world has gone to absolute shit. Life as we know it is over. And not in the stupid angsty ‘oh my god my life is over because I missed the Ed Sheeran concert’. It’s actually fucking over. And I’m burying a man I hardly know, a man who was just trying to help out another human in a fucked up situation and now-now he’s dead. Because two motherfuckers killed him and were going to kill me after… And I just fucking sliced open a walking dead person who wanted to eat my brains or whatever.” Clarke stopped, realizing she was rambling to someone she hardly knew, someone who was standing over what would be a grave and looking at her calmly and steadily, albeit a little worriedly.

“And you’re so fucking calm about everything! It’s like nothing fazes you!” Clarke cried out suddenly. “I wish I could be like that.”  
Lexa looked downcast and lifted her shoulders in a shrug before starting to dig again. “It comes at a very high cost.” She said simply.

“I’m sorry. God, I’m so selfish. I’m standing here rambling and going on and on about me as if the last month or so haven’t been hard for you.”

“Clarke,” Lexa said firmly, stopping Clarke from babbling on further. “Stop apologizing. You’re entitled to freak out a little. It’s a hard situation to adjust to.” 

Clarke nodded. “Did you freak out… when all this started?”

“Of course I did. But I guess it was easier for me than most.”

“Why?”

There was a long silence and Clarke wasn’t sure Lexa was going to answer. 

“For one, I had already lost everyone I loved long ago.” Lexa finally answered in a flat voice. “I didn’t have to worry about anyone being torn apart by some monster.” 

Clarke wasn’t sure of what to say to that. She could tell by the set of Lexa’s jaw it was a hard subject for her to talk about. She didn’t want to respond by saying the same tired old things that people always say when hearing that someone else had lost someone, the things she heard constantly after her father died. When Lexa looked up to her a second later, they shared a meaningful look and Lexa nodded slightly before going back to her work.

Clarke was beyond curious about this mysterious stranger she had crossed paths with, and despite the dangerous and unbelievable circumstances they had met under and continued to live under, Clarke couldn’t help but notice the connection that existed between them, even after knowing each other for such a short amount of time. She wasn’t sure if that was the traumatic situation they found themselves in that accounted for it (she was sure it definitely played a part, knowing for sure that people who went through something traumatic together often developed a deep connection with each other rather quickly) or if it was something more than that. All she knew was that she felt like Lexa could understand what she was thinking and feeling just by looking at her, and vice versa. Maybe she was just projecting. Regardless, she was starting to regret the moment when Lexa would inevitably leave, obviously not interested in sticking with her after burying Stu. Although maybe that wasn’t quite so obvious. After all, wasn’t the fact that she offered to help in the first place show that she’s more of a ‘team player’ as she put it than she thinks she is? 

Clarke looked down, noticing a cross made out of two pieces of wood nailed together, and picked it up.

“Where did you get this?”

Lexa looked up to see what Clarke was holding. “Oh. I found these two planks in his shed and I thought I’d fashion a grave marker of sorts. He had all sorts of tools in there so I used the saw to cut up the planks and nailed them together.” She shrugged before continuing with her digging. “I don’t know if he’s even Christian but-” Another shrug as she deposited the dirt she had shoveled up onto the growing pile beside her. “It’s something at least.”

Clarke watched her as she continued digging, seemingly unaware of how touching her gesture was. “Thank you,” Clarke said quietly and when Lexa looked up and studied the shine on Clarke’s eyes she gave her a small smile. Clarke liked that smile very much and hoped it wouldn’t be the last she saw of it.

Clarke sat on the ground, leaning against the tree as she watched Lexa work. She wished she could draw right now but at the same time, felt it would be wrong to enjoy anything when Lexa was working so hard digging a grave for a man who been killed senselessly. So she sat there, looking around at the fields stretching before her, noting the line of walkers that gathered on the other side of the fences at the end of Stu’s property. It unsettled her to know they were so close. She watched Lexa as she added to the pile of dirt beside her, unable to stop herself from admiring the muscles rippling under her tanned skin, bathed in sweat. Her hands were dirty and she had accidentally smeared dirt across her face as well, which was flushed from the effort. Clarke offered multiple times to take over and each time Lexa had refused. They didn’t talk much more, Lexa far too focused on digging and Clarke lost in her thoughts. She went inside once to bring Lexa a tall glass of water, not wanting her to be thirsty. Clarke was rewarded with a small smile, mumbled thanks, and the sight of the tendons in Lexa’s neck working as she swallowed the water in big gulps, wiping her mouth and handing back the glass to Clarke. 

Finally, the grave was deep enough and Lexa climbed out of it gracefully. 

“Thank you, again,” Clarke said as Lexa moved towards the truck.

Lexa shrugged. “It cut into my dinner plans a bit but-” She waved her hand dismissively.

“Was that an attempt at a joke?” Clarke teased with a smile.

“Just a little apocalypse humor.” She replied with a smirk.

Both women immediately sobered, realizing it wasn’t that funny, especially when they were about to bury someone. Clarke felt a pang of guilt and she ran her hand through her hair with a sigh.

“I guess we should get started,” Clarke said.

Lexa nodded. “Let’s lay out the blanket on the ground and we’ll lower him onto it and wrap him in it, ok? Then we can lower him into the grave.”

Clarke laid out the blanket while Lexa hopped up on the bed of the truck and stood at the end closest to the cab. 

They managed to get Stu down from the truck bed, handling him with as much care as they could, before lowering him gently onto the spread blanket. Lexa laid one side of it across him, covering him, and Clarke laid the other side across him. His feet poked out at the end but it was the best they could do. Next, they lowered him into the grave, Lexa actually standing in it so she could place him down gently. When she boosted herself out of the grave again, she placed her hand on the handle of the shovel, which she had stuck in the ground.

“Do you want to say anything?” Lexa asked, hesitantly and Clarke nodded and was silent as she gathered her thoughts 

“Stu, I didn’t know you for very long but in the short amount of time, I did know you I could tell you were a good man, who cared deeply for others. I appreciate you so much for everything you did for me… I wouldn’t be alive right now if it weren’t for you and your generosity. We could all stand to learn a lot from you. I hope you’re with Betsy right now.” Clarke finished and Lexa nodded solemnly. 

“Rest in peace, Stu. The world could use more people like you.” Lexa added. 

Clarke started crying in earnest when Lexa shoveled the first pile of dirt on top of Stu’s wrapped body. “Stop!” She called out and Lexa stilled, looking at her questioningly. 

“I have to grab something from the house before you continue. Just wait.” Clarke ran towards the house without another word. She went straight into the living room and grabbed the picture of Stu and his wife off his wall, the one he had been staring at earlier that very day before running back outside and towards Lexa.

“It’s probably stupid but I wanted to bury him with this. It’s a picture of his wife Betsy. She died a while ago of cancer.” Clarke explained, getting on her knees to place the picture over Stu’s body.

“It’s not stupid at all, Clarke,” Lexa assured softly and looked at her for confirmation that it was ok to start digging again. Clarke nodded and looked on as a pile after pile of dirt landed on Stu’s shrouded body until it was no longer visible. It was starting to get dark once Lexa filled the hole, flattening the top of it with the shovel, and stuck the makeshift grave marker into the ground at the head of the grave. Both women stood silently at the foot of the grave, looking down at the bare patch of Earth. Lexa walked away silently, and Clarke watched as she went to the side of the house where a patch of flowers was growing, picked a handful of them, and silently placed them under the marker. Lexa stood beside Clarke again, looking back at Clarke who was looking at her gratefully. Lexa found she didn’t mind being the cause of that look, and felt happy that even though Clarke was grieving, both over Stu, whatever other people she might have lost, and over the shock of adjusting to a changed world upon waking up from a coma, that even despite all that, she of all people were able to fill those blue eyes with something other than despair.

“Why don’t we go have some dinner? The house has a generator so I can make us a warm meal. Who knows? Maybe there’s some alcohol tucked away somewhere. God knows we could use some.” Clarke offered.

Lexa knew the smart, sane thing to do would be to decline and go her own way like she said she would back at the clearing after helping Clarke bury her friend. A few hours ago, that’s what she would have done. Instead, she found herself accepting Clarke’s offer and following her inside the house.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clarke and Lexa get to know each other a little better and Lexa teaches Clarke how to fight.

Clarke told Lexa that she could shower while Clarke cooked dinner (which was really nothing more than heating up two cans of beef stew over the stove) and Lexa gratefully accepted the offer, not even remembering the last time she was able to clean herself in an actual shower. She’s been bathing in creeks and rivers she’s come across in her nomadic travels over the last month, never staying in one place for too long. She figured if she kept moving, it’d be harder for the biters to catch her. Or walkers, as Clarke called them. Lexa smirked, finding the term to be misleading towards the nature of the creatures in question. But she had to give it to Clarke; it did have a certain ring to it. Lexa contemplated how she felt about Clarke under the comforting feeling of the spray of hot water, taking a moment to reflect that this was one of the best showers she had ever taken. That’s the thing about war. (Lexa thought of the current state of the world as a war, between the living and the dead, yes, but as today so clearly demonstrated, between the living and the living as well. Lexa knew a lot about human nature from her experience in the world, and the horrible things human get up to in dire situations, especially when there’s no accountability, and she only knew that things would get worse from here on out, that people would get more and more bold once they realized the cavalry wasn’t coming.) When your life is constantly threatened, you start appreciating the small stuff, the things you used to take for granted. She was glad her life had almost prepared her for what was happening now. She can’t imagine how hard it must be for others who haven’t been through what she had been through. That led her mind back to Clarke, and she hardly wanted to admit to herself that she found herself caring what happened to her, despite having just met her. She knew that was a dangerous thing in war: to care about someone else. But Clarke seemed so lost and scared of the new world she found herself in. Lexa could tell she was tough and had a strong will to survive: the way she handled that walker back in the woods was enough to convince Lexa of that. She just needed time to adjust to the new circumstances and tap into that source of strength. That will only take time and experience, Lexa knew, and it wasn’t something that could be sped up. And it seemed wrong to leave her when Clarke was in such a difficult position. Leaving her now would be akin to leaving her to die. It wouldn’t hurt Lexa to stay with her until she felt Clarke could handle being on her own; then Lexa could go her own way with a clear conscience. 

Clarke had given her some clothes to change into and Lexa put them on now. Skinny jeans, which Lexa didn’t much like, as they weren’t as easy to move around in, but she could make do, and a plain black t-shirt. 

When she walked into the kitchen, hair down and still wet from the shower, Clarke was just putting two bowls on the table. They both sat down and ate in silence, too starved to bother with dinner conversation. 

“Thank you for letting me shower and making me dinner,” Lexa said when she finished.

Clarke nodded. “It’s the least I could do after all you’ve done for me today. Do you want more? I can heat up another can.”

Lexa shook her head with a slight smile.

“You look much different without blood on your face and with your hair down,” Clarke commented.

Lexa raised her eyebrows. “Oh?”

Clarke smiled sheepishly, suddenly feeling very shy. “Not in a bad way.”

There was silence as they looked at each other across the table. 

Clarke got up, crossing across the kitchen to pick up a bottle that had been sitting on the counter. “I found this, in the pantry. I’m not much of a scotch drinker but beggars can’t be choosers I guess. Shall we?”

Lexa pursed her lips. “While I do like scotch, I think I’ll pass. It wouldn’t be smart for us to get intoxicated in our situation.”

Clarke pouted. “C’mon, we are fenced in and in a secured house. Don’t we deserve a little distraction the shitty way things are right now?”  
“Sure, but being distracted is what can get us killed.” 

Clarke sighed. “Well, would you mind me drinking then?”

“Why are you so sure I’m sticking around?”

Clarke’s shoulders slumped. “Yeah, I guess you’re right. Our deal was you’d help me bury Stu and then leave.” She tried to keep her voice as even as possible, not wanting to betray how disappointed she felt, but Lexa could hear the sadness in her tone. She wanted to ignore the twang in her chest at it, but she couldn’t. It had seemed so easy to decide on staying while in the comfort of the hot shower, but out here, the idea seemed ridiculous. That didn’t change how she felt, as much as she wished it would.

“I guess I can spend the night. It is late.” Lexa reasoned.

Clarke smiled. 

Lexa ended up drinking some of the whiskey, unable to say just sit back and watch as Clarke drank alone. Clarke was right; it was time for some well-deserved downtime. Lexa had been on the move constantly over the last month, dealing with one threat after another. She hadn’t had more than a few moments to relax and it might be fun to get a little drunk and forget about the outside world for a while. It would dull the thoughts in her head as well; thoughts that were trying to bring her back to times in the past. The state of the world had only heightened those painful memories. She remembered one night, not long after all of this had unfolded, she had walked through the very same woods she had found Clarke, with the intention of finding walkers to put down. She had felt this rage coursing through her body, making her see red, and by the end of the night, she had actually been red from all the blood she had shed. She knew at that moment that she had to keep better control over her emotions, over the thoughts and images that plagued her. She knew that in a world like this it would be all too easy to sink into a black hole of violence, to lose any semblance of humanity. She had seen what violent situations could do to people, could change people, and she didn’t want that to happen to her. 

“So you know what I did before…” Clarke gestured wildly at the front yard. “All this.” 

Clarke and Lexa were sitting on the front porch, passing the bottle of whiskey back and forth. Clarke was well on her way to being drunk, clearly not able to hold her liquor quite as well as Lexa, who felt a pleasant buzz but felt otherwise normal. It would be hard for her to lose her clear-headedness in the world they were now living in, especially with the threat standing on the other side of a fence one field away. Lexa took a swig of the whiskey regardless. 

“I was a Marine,” Lexa said tightly.

Clarke gaped at her. “Well, that explains a lot.”  
Lexa gave her a sidelong glance. 

“I’m sorry. That was the absolute wrong thing to say. I just meant it explains why you are so good at fighting and surviving on your own.”

Lexa shook her head lightly, dismissing her apology.

“Thank you for your service,” Clarke added and Lexa couldn’t hold back a short bark of laughter.

“I meant that sincerely.”

“I know you did. That’s kind of why I’m laughing.”

Clarke looked at her questioningly.

“It just seems silly, doesn’t it? That the country I risked my life to protect, that I…” Lexa trailed off, finding herself lost in the stars above her head before turning to Clarke again. “It doesn’t exist anymore.” 

Clarke made a quiet humming noise as she considered what Lexa was saying. 

“And now the people who used to live in the ‘Land of the Free’,” Lexa exclaimed derisively the effects of the alcohol finally hitting her head on. “Will be truly free to do whatever they fucking want. Which is, if I know people at all, and I think I do, and you would too if you’ve seen what I’ve seen, kill, pillage, and conquer. That’s what war is really about, everything else is just a smokescreen, and humanity is about to see its biggest war yet.” 

Clarke eyed Lexa, concerned. This was the least collected she had ever seen her. She wondered if the girl had ever had a moment to pause and let her reality sink in and thought that maybe this was her moment, that everything that she had been feeling and unable to express in the danger she had likely constantly been in, was finally coming out in the one moment of peace she had. 

“Everyone thought World War III would be nuclear. We all thought that that was the direction the world was surely heading. After all, that’s what the war I had fought in claimed to be about. Claimed being the operative word there.” Lexa chuckled as she took another large swig of whiskey, throwing her head back against the back of her chair as she swallowed. “Nope. Nothing beats good old biological warfare.”

Clarke whipped her head around. “You’re saying that some country caused this?” 

Lexa shrugged. “Just a theory.”

Clarke stared ahead. “I can’t believe that.”

Lexa looked at Clarke sadly. “I wish I could have your optimism, but I simply can’t afford to. It’s the explanation that seems the most plausible. A group of scientists tasked with creating a new virus to use as a weapon. Don’t think that most countries, the United States included, don’t have a collection of viruses on hand for that purpose exactly. But the thing with war is no weapon ever seems powerful enough. Everyone is constantly trying to one-up each other to prove they wield the biggest stick. So a group of scientists, doesn’t matter what country they’re from, creates this virus, right? And maybe it wasn’t supposed to do what it so obviously has done, maybe it was created by accident. Maybe they thought they could create something that brings people back from the dead. And, by God, it works. The only downside is it turns the person into a ravaging monster. Maybe they release it on purpose, maybe it gets out on accident. Either way, the result is the same: the end of the world due to the carelessness of some power-hungry government.”

Clarke considers everything Lexa was saying. 

“Maybe we can start over,” Clarke said quietly. Lexa glanced at her, eyebrows raised.

“I don’t know. Everything is shit now. So many people have died and will continue to die. I just can’t accept that it’s all for nothing, that this is it for us. Maybe we can rebuild and maybe the world will be a better place for it.” 

Lexa made a scoffing noise.

“I have to believe that. I have to believe that, even if it’s not in my lifetime, even if I die tomorrow or the next or the day after that, which is all too likely, that at some point the remaining humans can turn this around and learn from it. Build society again, except this time, make it better.” 

Lexa remained silent, choosing to indulge in more whiskey but Clarke reached out and put her hand on the bottle before Lexa could even take one sip.

“Don’t you believe that?” Clarke asked pleadingly and Lexa knew that she wanted her to say yes, she did believe it; she wanted Lexa to put her mind at rest so she could sleep a little easier knowing that maybe this suffering might mean something in the future. 

Clarke must have gotten her answer through Lexa’s silence and she sat back, grabbing the bottle to take another large swig before handing it back to Lexa. 

“How long did you serve for?” Clarke asked.

Lexa raised her eyebrows. “I joined when I was 18. I left when I turned 23, last year.”  
“Five years,” Clarke said musingly, trying to imagine being at war for that long. Then realizing she might not have to imagine. She was going to get a taste for herself what it was like to fight for her life on a daily basis. “And you only got one year of peace before this shit.”

Lexa snorted. “I’d hardly call it peace.” 

Clarke looked over at her, eyes searching. “How about before the Marines? Did you have peace then?”

Lexa took another small sip of whiskey as she shook her head. 

“Hmm.” Clarke hummed. “So you’ve always been at war, huh?”

Lexa shrugged.

“Did you feel relieved?”

“About what?”

“About this,” Clarke asked sweeping her hand across the air in front of her.

“About being on this farm?”

“You know that’s not what I’m asking.”

Lexa felt her teeth clenching and unclenching as she considered the question. “Part of me, yes. Not at all the people who died and suffered, I feel terrible about that and wish that they didn’t. But yes, part of me feels relieved that I no longer have to pretend that normal life was working for me, that I could drink coffee, go shopping, and walk down the street like I was just like everyone else. I’m not and maybe I never was. But I was the least like everyone else when I came back. Each tour I went on, I left more and more of myself in the countries I fought in until I felt like a hollow shell of who I used to be when I would finally come back home. I guess fighting became the only time I felt truly like myself. And that’s a horrible thing. You can’t say shit like that to people; they don’t understand how you can feel more scared coming home than you do in the middle of a firefight.” 

Clarke listened to her intently, trying to absorb everything Lexa was saying, knowing she just needed someone to listen. 

Lexa wanted to blame the alcohol on why she was talking so much and she was sure that was part of it, but she couldn’t deny the part those kind blue eyes played in her willingness to open up to someone, who for all intents and purposes was a stranger. She couldn’t even remember the last time she had opened up to anyone, even before the apocalypse caused a dramatic reduction in the number of humans able to or willing to participate in such a conversation. Expressing herself had never felt easy to her, yet here she was, spilling her guts to Clarke over a bottle of alcohol like some pathetic cliche. The most startling part of it all was that Clarke didn’t even seem to mind. 

“The hardest thing I’ve faced up to this point in my life was losing my father in high school. He was my best friend and nobody could make me smile or laugh quite like he did. He died so that many other people could live and it sounds horrible, but I’d trade any or all of those people’s lives to see him again, even if it was just for a minute. I’ve had this bitterness living inside me, that these people got to live long happy lives that my father died for, and it makes me feel horrible. I’ve spent so much time trying to bury that part of me, that selfish, heartless part of me. I’ve tried equally as hard to be as selfless and caring as I can, and it’s not that I don’t feel those things naturally. I do… but sometimes I wish it was ok to be selfish sometimes. Sometimes I wish people didn’t see me as this do-gooder who will give up anything for others. If they looked closely, they’d see I’d have nothing left to give.”

Lexa and Clarke’s eyes met their soft gazes communicating what words could not. Both of them felt some relief at finding themselves in a world where all superficiality was stripped away, a world that made it possible for two strangers to be open and honest with one another. They only wished it didn’t have to come at the cost of so many lives.

“I think it’s best we head to bed,” Clarke stated, breaking the silence and pulling her eyes to Lexa, who nodded in agreement.

They rose from their chairs and headed inside, wishing the other goodnight before Clarke disappeared into the bedroom she had slept in last night. Lexa knew there was another bed, but she felt weird about sleeping in it, knowing it had been Stu’s. So she slept on the couch, which was still incredibly comfortable and sank into a deeper sleep than she had had in months. 

Clarke was surprisingly able to fall asleep but her slumber was filled with nightmares that left her jerking awake repeatedly throughout the night. When morning finally arrived, she felt as if she might as well not have slept at all for the amount of good the small amount of sleep she managed did her. In the past, at least she had the comfort of waking up to a nightmare, knowing it was just a dream and none of it was real. What was Clarke supposed to do when she was stuck in a living nightmare, her reality not much better than the dreams that plagued her sleep? Even worse was the knowledge that Lexa had likely left after Clarke had gone to bed last night, meaning Clarke was alone on top of everything else. The only plus side she found was the fact that she surprisingly didn’t have too bad of a hangover from drinking last night. 

So rose out of bed reluctantly and walked out to the kitchen, stopping in her shock at seeing Lexa pouring coffee into a mug from the pot she had just made. Lexa blew on her drink and raised her eyebrows at Clarke’s surprised expression.

“Good morning to you too, princess.” She said, almost coldly and Clarke narrowed her eyes at the nickname.

“Of course you’re a morning person,” Clarke replied as Lexa silently handed her a cup of coffee.

“Of course, you’re not.” 

Clarke glared at her as she took a sip, her face turning into a grimace as she burned her tongue.

“You have to wait for it to cool down.” Lexa supplied helpfully.

Clarke rolled her eyes, wondering what was biting at Lexa. She seemed tense this morning, much less open than she was last night. Clarke supposed the difference being they were completely sober and no longer had the task of burying someone to focus them on a common goal.

Lexa did, in fact, feel tense, having woken up this morning, realizing how much she had shared with Clarke. Part of her did consider just leaving the farm before Clarke woke up but she couldn’t bring herself to do it. So she settled on telling the girl as soon as they finished breakfast that she would be going on her not so merry way and good luck and Godspeed to her. She no longer felt much qualms about leaving someone who clearly was not ready to be left alone to fend for herself, deciding that it wasn’t her responsibility and it was up to the girl to figure out on her own if she had what it took to survive. If she couldn’t, that wasn’t on Lexa. Another part of her screamed out against this, claiming it was her duty as a Marine to protect and serve and Lexa dutifully reminded that part of her that she was no longer a Marine and had no duty whatsoever to anyone. That part of her argued that if it wasn’t her duty as Marine, it was her duty as a fellow human in a world where humans had quickly become an endangered species. Lexa had gone back and forth for ten minutes, lying awake on the couch and staring at the ceiling. Her life had been so much easier before she had been walking through the woods the day before and heard the sounds of a woman screaming, her instincts propelling her towards the sound before she even had time to think. She simply hadn’t any other choice; it wasn’t in her nature to turn away when someone clearly was in need of help. Even when it came to her detriment as it had so many times in her past. 

She thought it would be best to keep her distance from Clarke to make their soon to be goodbyes easier on both of them. 

Clarke was intent on bringing Lexa out of her shell, partly because she craved human contact and partly because this woman intrigued her. 

“How did you sleep?” Clarke asked.

Lexa didn’t want to admit she had slept better than she had in awhile. She shrugged. “I slept ok.”

While Lexa hadn’t bothered to ask her, Clarke answered anyway. “I slept terribly. I had one nightmare after the other, and the worst part was none of them felt far from reality.”

Lexa looked at Clarke, her answer giving her plan to distance herself from Clarke some pause. Lexa was all too familiar with suffering through nightmares night after night. 

“I wake up and I don’t feel any safer than I did in whatever dream I’d been having.”

Lexa tapped her fingers against her mug restlessly, considering, before putting it down on the counter and grabbing Clarke’s mug to place it next to hers.

“Hey!” Clarke protested and then was silenced as Lexa urged her out the door.

“What’s got your panties in a bunch?” Clarke asked as Lexa stopped in the front yard.

“I’m going to help you feel safer.”

Clarke raised her eyebrows. “Yeah? How’s that?”

“I’m going to teach you how to defend yourself so the next time you find yourself held at gunpoint by two assholes you won’t have to rely on the goodness of a stranger to save you. You’ll get nowhere in this world if you rely too heavily on other people.”

“You’ll get nowhere in this world if you rely too heavily on yourself.” Clarke countered.

Lexa rolled her eyes. “Look, do you want to learn to fight or not? Because I’m not doing this for me. Although, I have to admit it will be entertaining to watch you attempt to hold your own against me.”

Clarke snorted. “Not one for modesty, are you?”

Lexa gave Clarke a knowing look. “While I’m sure the training they gave you as a barista was quite rigorous, it hardly matches the training regime I’ve had to go through.” 

“Perhaps, but did your training teach you how to make pretty designs using the foam on top of a cappuccino?” 

“You’ve got me beat on that one, princess. But I hardly think that skill will come in handy when a biter is coming at you or when you’re in hand to hand combat with another person.”

Clarke glared at Lexa’s nickname. “What is it with you calling me princess? Is that something you picked up in the Marines?”

Lexa jaw tensed ever so slightly, regretting how much she had spilled to this woman the night before. She never talked about her service to anyone, for very obvious reasons, and didn’t care for it being brought up in conversation. Clarke must have sensed her discomfort because her eyes immediately widened in regret.

“I’m sorry; that was probably an incredibly inappropriate comment to make. Forgive me.”

Lexa shook her head, dismissing the apology, and held her head higher. “Enough chit-chat.” 

Clarke nodded, feeling somewhat nervous about Lexa teaching her to fight, knowing the woman would be hard on her if the set of her jaw and the steel in her eyes was any indicator. Lexa began by teaching her the proper fighting stance, how to throw a proper punch, and how to make sure to always maintain a defensive position. Clarke felt a heat go through her whenever Lexa touched her to correct her form. Lexa did not appear to notice the effect her touch was having on Clarke, her eyes remaining as cold and determined as ever as she sternly instructed Clarke. 

“We’ve been going over this forever, Lexa.” Clarke protested. 

“Maybe we wouldn’t have to if you were better at following directions.” 

“I’m one of those people who learn by doing,” Clarke said defensively.

“You think you’re ready to spar with me?” Lexa asked, raising her eyebrows in a challenge. 

“Bring it, Woods.” 

Lexa couldn’t hold back her smirk as she prepared herself to wipe the unheeded confidence off of Clarke’s face. After half an hour of going over fighting positions, she thought she was ready to go against someone who had been fighting practically her whole life. As much as Lexa would hate to admit it, she found herself admiring the woman’s confidence, imagining the type of warrior that confidence could make her with some more experience. Experience she was liable to get in this world. 

It didn’t take long for Clarke’s bubble to be burst. She had expected Lexa to go easy on her, considering she was learning, but clearly, that just wasn’t in Lexa’s vocabulary. The most she could do was try to evade Lexa’s attacks. Each time she tried to go on the offense, Lexa easily blocked her, and Clarke even ended up on the ground a few times when Lexa cut the legs out from under her.

Clarke laid panting on her back, after having been flipped on her back following a desperate attack on her part. Lexa was barely breaking a sweat as she stood over Clarke, the sun behind her giving her a soft halo around the outline of her body. 

“You’re showing off,” Clarke whined.

Lexa shrugged. “You’re making it easy for me to.”

“You should be going easy on me, Lexa. I’m in training.”

Lexa raised her eyebrows as she finally held out her hand to help Clarke up. “I am going easy on you.”

“What am I doing wrong? I’m doing everything you told me to do.”

“You don’t learn this stuff in a day, Clarke.”

“Well, we don’t have much time, do we? People like the men I met yesterday aren’t going to wait around until I learn how to fight. I need to know how to fight. Now.”

Lexa could hear the anxiety in her voice and she decided to try and distract her. “You’re holding back.”

“What?”

“You’re not taking this seriously. All your attacks are half-assed like you’re unsure of yourself, and that’s what makes it so easy for me to gain the upper hand. That and my years of experience.” 

“Well, I don’t want to hurt you. Clearly, you don’t show the same concern with me.”

Lexa raised her eyebrows. “Have I hurt you?”

Clarke considered, realizing that even when Lexa landed a blow, which was quite a lot, it hardly hurt. Even when she was flipped on her back, Lexa managed to do it in a way that ensured she wouldn’t injure Clarke in the process. It was clear from the previous day in the woods that Lexa had a lot of strength and skill in the way she took down those two men, and that had been impressive, but what impressed Clarke even more was the way she seemed in complete control over her abilities, able to finetune the exact amount of force to use to subdue Clarke without hurting her. 

“No, you haven’t,” Clarke admitted begrudgingly. 

“Clarke, I’m trying to teach you how to defend yourself. You’re not going to learn anything if you’re too scared to use everything you have against me. What are you going to do when someone attacks you for real?”

“I don’t want to hurt you,” Clarke admitted shyly. She had never been in a fight in her life and didn’t much care for violence.

Lexa shook her head, smiling. “Clarke, you’re not going to hurt me. I can handle whatever you throw at me.” 

Clarke looked at her, full of doubt even though she knew the words to be true. Even if Clarke managed to land a blow on Lexa, with all the force she could muster, she was sure Lexa could handle it, after her experience in the Marines. Still, she felt reluctant to hit her. 

Lexa decided to try a different tactic. “C’mon, Clarke do you really expect to survive in this world if you can’t even fight me? What are you doing to do when you’re faced with a real threat and there’s nobody around to save you this time?”

Clarke felt anger growing in her and Lexa saw it flashing in her eyes. Clarke knew what she was trying to do: goad her into fighting her in earnest but Clarke just made a scoffing noise, turning away from Lexa, not childish enough to fall for such a cheap trick. 

“You said so yourself: you’re sick of being some do-gooder, so show me. Show me you have it in you to actually fight for yourself for once, instead of bending to the wills of those around you.”

“Shut up, Lexa! You have no idea what you’re talking about!” Clarke yelled, trying to walk away but Lexa just followed, offering no respite.

“I don’t? Tell me I’m wrong, princess.” Lexa spat through her teeth. Clarke could see the muscles in her jaw working and the coldness in her eyes but despite Lexa’s angry looking exterior, Lexa felt in complete control of herself. 

Clarke whipped around to look at Lexa, breathing heavily, feeling the tears well up in her eyes and trying to bite them back, not wanting to be weak in front of Lexa. 

“I don’t have to prove anything to you, Lexa. I’m not some private and you’re not my goddamn sergeant.” 

“Good fucking thing. I wouldn’t trust you to watch my sixth.” Lexa scoffed.

Clarke’s eyes narrowed in anger. “You think you’re so much better than everyone, just because you can fight and kill without blinking an eye. That doesn’t make you strong, Lexa. It makes you a monster, no better than those fucking things over there.” Clarke waved her hand toward the number of walkers across the field and on the other side of the fence, a number that had grown quite a bit over the night. 

Clarke saw a dangerous flash in Lexa’s eyes. “At least I can keep myself alive, without relying on others having to die for me.” Lexa hissed through her teeth and Clarke felt her fist, which had been clenched by her side tightly, thrust forward, almost like it had moved of its own accord, and Lexa stumbled back as it connected with her nose. She maintained her footing, bending over slightly and Clarke’s anger completely dissipated as she realized what she had done, guilt immediately taking over her, and a quite a bit of fear as she prepared for Lexa to retaliate. Lexa surprised her by laughing shortly, spitting blood coated saliva from her mouth before raising her head to look at Clarke, a trickle of blood dripping from her nose.

“Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god I can’t believe I just did that I’ve never punched anyone before I’m so sorry,” Clarke said this in one continuous stream as she rushed toward Lexa, reaching up her hands to carefully prod at her nose. Lexa grabbed her wrist before it could reach her face and pushed her gently away, a smile playing on her lips.

“Why are you apologizing?”

“Because I punched you in the face!” Clarke exclaimed.

Lexa went back into the house to wipe off the blood on her face and Clarke followed. 

“Believe me, Clarke, I was surprised as you were,” Lexa said with a wink. 

“You’re not mad?”

Lexa shook her in the head. “I told you not to go easy on me, didn’t I?”

Clarke rolled her eyes, her own anger at what Lexa had said to her settling back in now that she knew Lexa was ok and not angry. “You were being a dick.” She said.

“I did what I had to do to finally get you to take this seriously. Now, do you want to continue or not?” 

Lexa moved to walk past her and towards the door but Clarke stilled her with a hand on her arm, trying to ignore how good her toned skin felt under her fingertips. 

“No, I don’t want to continue training with someone who berates and insults me.”

Lexa narrowed her eyes and made a scoffing noise. “Clarke, if you can’t handle me being rude to you while helping you learn to fight, how do you expect to handle another person coming at you and trying to kill you, or a biter?” 

“There you go again. Thinking you’re so much better than everyone because you’re affected by nothing.”

“I don’t think I’m better than anyone, Clarke. I just know what it takes to survive in dangerous situations and I don’t think you do. This isn’t a game, Clarke. This is real life and there’s a lot more at stake here than a few hurt feelings. I’m sorry what I said hurt you, I admit, maybe I took it a little too far, but better a few hurt feelings than being dead.” 

Clarke sighed heavily, knowing some of what Lexa was saying was true and not wanting to admit it. 

Lexa looked at her expectantly, waiting for her to fire back with a retort. Instead, Clarke held her head high, trying to mimic the confidence Lexa exuded from every pore of her body and glared at Lexa. This time when she tried to punch Lexa, hoping to catch her off guard again, Lexa’s hand caught her arm before her fist could reach her face. Lexa’s lips curled upwards slightly, in the ghost of a smile, before the two started sparring in earnest for the next hour. Lexa stopped regularly, correcting Clarke on what she was doing wrong, and giving her tips on how to be a better fighter. Clarke lost herself in the activity; part of it felt exhilarating, but Clarke knew in a real fight she would just be terrified. But she trusted Lexa, somehow knew the trained soldier wouldn’t hurt her, was always in control, of herself and of the flow of the fight. It didn’t hurt that sparring allowed her to be close to Lexa, allowing her to admire her toned body, to touch it even. By the time they stopped Clarke was exhausted. Lexa was sweating and looked flushed but she was as collected as ever.

“How did I do?” Clarke asked, panting as they drank some water. 

“You’re improving,” Lexa answered evenly. 

Clarke smiled, knowing that was likely the best praise she was going to get from Lexa.

“Thank you, for teaching me. I learned a lot and it helped distract me if nothing else.”

Lexa nodded. 

“Are you hungry?” Clarke asked. “Because I’m starving.”

Lexa hesitated. She really should be leaving now. There was no real reason to for her to stay; by choosing to stay, she would be admitting that it was to be with Clarke, and not any of the half-assed excuses she had come up to elongate her time with this woman. First helping her bury Stu (it’s the decent thing to do), then staying for dinner (I am feeling pretty hungry), spending the night (it’s too late to leave now) and then this morning (it’s only fair that I teach her how to fight before leaving her, right?).

Despite recognizing this pattern, Lexa felt doomed to repeat it, unable to do much of anything else at the sight of those hopeful blue eyes, especially when they had spent the last hour in each other’s space, each vying for control over the over. 

Lexa knew she was going against all of her finely tuned instincts for self-preservation by accepting Clarke’s breakfast invite but Lexa ignored that. It would be unwise to hit the road on an empty stomach.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lexa is so in denial... Let me know how you feel about the story so far; I appreciate the feedback!


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clarke and Lexa discuss their next steps before being interrupted

They had breakfast outside on the front porch.

“What’s your plan, Clarke?” Lexa asked. 

Clarke shrugged as she swallowed the bite she just took. “I guess I haven’t thought much about that. The present has been distracting enough as it is. I suppose I’ll stay here for the time being; it’s safe and comfortable.”

Lexa contemplated her answer as she stared ahead of them, eyeing the growing numbers of walkers who had collected at the other side of the wooden fence. More and more of them had made their way to the farm from the surrounding towns, likely wandering randomly until the smell or noise of food lured them in a specific direction. She’s had had a month to study these creatures; they didn’t have any intelligence Lexa could see. She could hear the collective sound of their grunts and groans faintly from her position at the house, and she’s sure any other walkers in the area were drawn to the noises, only making the problem worse. 

Clarke could tell Lexa was thinking deeply about something the way her eyebrows were furrowed and how unfocused her gaze seemed. “Penny for your thoughts,” Clarke said and Lexa finally turned to her, her expression unsure.

“That fence won’t hold,” Lexa stated.

“What do you mean?”

“The number of walkers on the other side of the fence has gotten exponentially bigger since we arrived here yesterday. I don’t know how old those fences are, whether Stu has had them reinforced at all in the last several years, but old rotting wood or strong new wood, it’s going to break at some point under the weight of all those walkers. The fact that it hasn’t already makes me think the fence is indeed newer, and stronger but it’s only a matter of time really.”

Clarke looked ahead, trying to make out the shapes of the walkers in the distance, which she agreed had grown to quite a crowd. 

“What do we do?” Clarke asked. “Can we reinforce the fence? Make it stronger?”

“That’s a stop-gap solution, really. You have to clear the herd.”

Clarke looked warily at the sight before them. “That seems way too big a group for two people to handle, especially when one of those people is as inexperienced as me.”

“No, it’d be quite an effort for two people to take down that many zombies… manually. If we had guns…” Lexa trailed off.

“I’ve never fired a gun before. Only held one for the first time two days ago.” 

“Now seems like as good a time to learn as any.” Lexa pointed out.

“Ok…” Clarke said unsurely. “But we don’t have any guns.”

“If I remember correctly, there are at least two rifles back at the clearing where… where we met.” Lexa said, her voice distant as if she was already planning, which Clarke supposed she was. “With enough ammo, that horde could be cleared pretty easily.”

Clarke considered what Lexa was suggesting. Going back to the clearing where those two men had taken her and Stu, where those two men still lay, wasn’t an idea Clarke much cared for but she could see that it was necessary. And Lexa was right; if she was going to learn how to fight, she also needed to learn how to properly use a gun if she hoped to survive in this world. 

“Ok, should we head over there now then?” Clarke asked.

Lexa gave her an amused glance, eyebrows raised. “And who said I was agreeing to this plan?”

Clarke furrowed her brows. “It was your idea.”

Lexa shrugged. “Yes, it was. It’s what I would do if I was planning on sticking around here.”

Clarke played her words over again in her mind. “If.”

“If,” Lexa repeated.

“What are you going to do?” Clarke asked. She really hadn’t been expecting to have this conversation, not so soon. She was hoping she’d be able to find more reasons for Lexa to stay until Lexa decided on her own to stick around. Clarke realized how desperate, and naive, that was and she kicked herself for being so stupid. 

“What I’ve been doing for the last month, princess. Surviving.”

“You’re going to pass on staying in a warm home with running water, electricity, and fences all around to keep those things out? To what? Go out there, where you could die any minute?”

Lexa chuckled. “Clarke, this place is a bubble. The longer you live here, the more in denial you’ll be about what the world is really like and when that bubble pops, and it will, you won’t be able to survive. You’ll die because you’ll be so distracted by your hot showers, and your lights, and a warm and comfy bed that you won’t see that the fences around all this land? Won’t keep the outside world from crashing in for much longer.” 

“Then fucking help me!” Clarke cried out against her better judgment. “Jesus, it’s like all you do is tell me how inept I am and how it’s inevitable that I’m going to get myself killed!” Clarke stood up, unable to just sit calmly over breakfast any longer. “If you think of me as so fucking useless, why are you even here? Is it a pity thing? You think I’m some helpless damsel in distress who needs some knight in shining armor to come save them?” Clarke paused. “I realize you did, in fact, save me from a distressing situation but that’s not the point!”

“What is your point then, Clarke?” Lexa said flatly, straining to keep her voice low. She was standing to meet Clarke, not much liking the idea of merely sitting back while Clarke yelled at her.

“My point is I’d rather you leave than stay here out of some kind of twisted charity. I’d rather figure out on my own how to survive than be patronized by you.”

Lexa’s jaw twitched in anger and she stepped closer to Clarke. “You still don’t get it, do you?”

“Get what?” Clarke snapped.

“We’ll all die. And right now, it’s looking like it’ll be sooner rather than later. For the last couple centuries, natural selection has no longer applied to humans anymore. Our advances in technology, medicine, and virtually every other industry known to man have ensured that plenty of people who otherwise would have died, survived. We discovered ways humans can inhabit environments they simply aren’t built to live in naturally.” Lexa felt calmer as she kept talking. Her voice was low but firm. “That’s over for us now. Now, we must live much closer to how our distant ancestors lived: by fending for ourselves using the resources available to us and whatever skills we have. Maybe in the past humans could get away with being dependent on external factors to survive, but that’s not the case anymore. We all have to smarten up and toughen up if we want to survive as long as we can.”

Clarke looked at Lexa’s steady gaze, letting her words sink in.

“I don’t pity you, Clarke. That’s not why I stayed, that’s not why I taught you to fight, or why I go on and on about what it takes to survive. I know what I say sounds harsh, but that’s what we need to be in order to survive.”

“What if life is about more than just surviving?” Clarke asked softly.

Lexa eye’s studied Clarke, seeing the desperate hope there, and Lexa couldn’t find it in herself to be the one to break it. “Maybe it is. But first, we have to survive.”

Clarke nodded. “I know I’m not as good at that as you are. You’ve had lots more experience in that area even before all this happened. I know I’m probably just a wet blanket for you but-”

“Clarke.” Lexa interrupted. “I wouldn’t have stuck around for just anyone. You don’t back down easy once you stop overthinking everything. I can tell you’re a fighter; I’ve got glimpses of that part of you and I know with time more and more of that part will come out.” 

“Then stick with me, Lexa. Together, we’ll have a better chance of surviving; we can help each other out, have each other’s back. You can continue teaching me how to fight and teach me how to shoot a gun. I have a fair amount of medical knowledge. If you get hurt, I can patch you up. I’m good at coming up with plans. I-”

“Clarke, you don’t have to sell yourself.” Lexa cut in.

“So?”

“So what?” 

“Are you going to stick with me or go out in a dangerous world all on your own?”

“It’s worked for me so far,” Lexa said… but then has it? If one’s standard of life was staying alive, sure, she was doing great. She had been great at that her whole life. But what if what Clarke said held some truth? That there was more to life than just staying alive? After all, if that’s all life was, the life of a human would be as complex as that of a one-cell bacteria. But that simply wasn’t the case. There were other aspects of life as well, ones that went beyond having a beating heart and working lungs, aspects that Lexa hadn’t let herself enjoy for a long time now. “But maybe it’s time for a change.” Lexa finished. Clarke’s eyes brightened and a wide grin spread across her face before she threw herself at Lexa, hugging her happily. Lexa tensed at first, taken by surprise by the first real human contact she had had in years, unable to react properly at first. After a beat she cautiously hugged Clarke back, knowing she had made the right choice as she felt the warmth of the other girl in her arms. Clarke pulled away smiling.

“You didn’t even get to hear my greatest skill.” 

“And what’s that?”

“I make a mean latte,” Clarke answered with a dorky smile.

Lexa shook her head and couldn’t help but return the blonde’s smile. It faltered quickly, however, when she glanced toward the front yard and saw a horde of walkers making their way across the field, leaving a broken fence in their wake.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m so sorry for ending this chapter on a cliffhanger. Don’t hate me too much!


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clarke and Lexa need to make a quick getaway after the farm is overrun.

Lexa ran into the house, dragging Clarke along with her; the girl was too stunned by the approaching mob of walkers to do anything but gape. 

Lexa grabbed the keys to the truck off the counter and turned back to the door, intending to make a break for the car before the walkers could reach them but Clarke pulled her back with the hand she was still holding.

“What are you doing? We have to get out of here.” Lexa said firmly, noting the reluctance in Clarke’s eyes. 

“Clarke, there’s too many of them.” Lexa’s voice raised slightly, growing rough around the edges, her eyes trying to communicate to Clarke that there was simply no time for this, that the longer they stayed in here the closer the walkers would get to the house. Then they’d have to fight their way to the truck and Lexa wasn’t sure Clarke was ready to handle so many walkers coming at her at once. 

Clarke clearly didn’t care about any of that, however, because she stared at Lexa for another second before moving past to her to retreat further into the house. Lexa groaned, sneaking a peek to check the walkers’ progress across the field, noting that in just another minute they’d be entering the front yard. 

“Clarke!” Lexa yelled, no longer concerned with keeping her voice level and polite. She stormed into the house after Clarke, who was grabbing something out of the hallway closet. Lexa saw it was a duffel bag. “Clarke we don’t have time to pack a bag. We have to go.”

“We also have to eat,” Clarke replied as she brushed past her and back into the kitchen. Lexa watched as she opened a cupboard and quickly dumped its storage of canned food into the bag. Stu had stocked up well. Lexa walked briskly to the door and her stomach knotted as she saw the horde of walkers had indeed made it to the front yard and were on their way to the house. They would have no choice but to fight through them to get to the car. Lexa’s eye caught the knife rack on the counter and she grabbed the biggest one in the collection, handing it to Clarke, who had just closed up the bag and slung it over her shoulder. Clarke took the knife and Lexa unsheathed her own.

“You ready?” Lexa asked and Clarke nodded; she looked scared out of her mind but she also had a hard determination set into her expression that pleased Lexa.

“Whatever you do, don’t stop moving until you get to the truck,” Lexa told her and they stepped out on the porch together. 

Three walkers, who had been edging ahead of the group thus far, made their way onto the porch. Clarke plunged her knife into the head of the walker closest to her and while Clarke was working to get the knife out, Lexa quickly slashed through the heads of the two others, in one fluid motion. 

“Slash, don’t stab!” She yelled over to Clarke as they made their way down the porch steps and towards the mass of walkers waiting for them, their animalistic noises becoming much more enthusiastic as they grabbed for any hold on the two women. 

Clarke and Lexa angled their way towards the truck, slashing their knives through the heads of any of walker who came near them, simply pushing others away from them when they didn’t have the time to use their weapons. Clarke’s heart was racing and every time a walker came near her she felt a jolt of fear, but she handled herself well, staying on the move and putting all her power behind each swing of her knife. It wasn’t as difficult cutting into the walker’s heads as Clarke would have thought; their flesh was rotting, easy to pierce through. She didn’t think she’d ever get used to the sound of a knife slicing through tissue, but with enough experience, she knew she would only get better at holding her own in situations like this.

Finally, Lexa and Clarke made it to the truck, Lexa yanking the door open as Clarke held back the oncoming walkers. When Lexa crawled inside she turned around to see Clarke backing towards the open door as she continued to slash at the heads of any walker who got close. 

“Clarke! Hurry the fuck up and get in here!” Lexa yelled as she started the truck, knowing if Clarke stayed out there any longer the mass of walkers would soon overwhelm her.

Clarke decided to make a break for the truck and just as she did, Lexa noticed the revolver sitting in the side panel on the driver’s side door. She picked it up and turned to see Clarke half in the car, a walker grabbing hold of her leg, whose frantic kicking was doing nothing to discourage the walker from trying to bite into it. Clarke was screaming, her blue eyes looking desperately up at Lexa as she held onto the headrest of the seat so she wouldn’t be pulled out of the car. It didn’t take Lexa more than a second to blow a hole through the head of the walker holding Clarke, who immediately pulled her legs in, shut the door, and dropped the bag of food at her feet. 

Lexa had started backing up as soon as the door closed, turning the car around wildly and speeding up the driveway to turn down the main road, running down a few walkers in the process. Neither Clarke or Lexa talked for the first five minutes, taking the time to try and quiet their rapidly beating hearts and shallow breaths. Each woman’s mind replayed the last minute (that had seemed to stretch on for much longer in the girls’ minds), their imaginations stuck on various close call moments, moments that had either of them acted even a second later would have ended in a brutal death for one or both girls. 

“Thank you. For saving my life, once again.” Clarke broke the silence, still breathing much heavier than normal. 

Lexa shook her head. “Maybe I wouldn’t have had to if you weren’t slowed down by that bag.” Her voice was light though as she gave Clarke a small smile.

Clarke rolled her eyes. “You’ll thank me later when you’re hungry. Although I’m not sure I’ll be hungry anytime soon.” She grimaced and her stomach tightened at the thought of all the blood her and Lexa had shed, and how close their own blood had been shed.

“What do we do now?”

“I’m driving towards Azgeda, the next town over. Today proved more than ever that we can’t get by with just knives. I’m hoping the police station’s weapons cache hasn’t been raided and we can get our hands on a few guns.”

Clarke nodded. “That’s a good idea. And you’ll teach me to shoot?”

Lexa smirked. “You’ll be learning from the best.”

Clarke rolled her eyes, but secretly she enjoyed Lexa’s confidence. She’d never admit that to the girl, however, knowing it would only add fuel to the fire and she’d never hear the end of it. 

“Good. Then it will be that much easier to reclaim the farm.”

Lexa gave Clarke an annoyed look. “That’s not something we agreed upon.”

“You said you were going to stay with me.”

“And I am. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to stay in a place that has proven to be unsafe.”

“We can rebuild the fence and reinforce the rest.”

“Clarke, that place is too big for the two of us to defend. We’d be making ourselves easy targets, not just for walkers but people too. It’s only been a month; I’m sure most people who are alive are still counting on the government to make this right, put an end to all this. When they realize that that’s not happening, our situation is going to get much stickier.”

“It could happen,” Clarke said quietly.

Lexa sighed, looking over towards Clarke. “You weren’t awake to see just how much the world has fallen apart. Everything’s lost, Clarke. And we can’t live our lives on the assumption that somebody else is going to come around at the last minute and save us. This isn’t a story; there is no Deux ex machina. We have to save ourselves.”

Lexa glanced down at the meters behind the wheel that told of the car’s speed, how many miles it’s been driven, etc, and her heart sunk when she saw the level of the gas tank. It would probably only take them another few miles and Azgeda was still another 6 miles away. 

“We’re going to run out of gas soon, which means we’ll have to walk the last couple miles to Azgeda,” Lexa said.

Clarke nodded. She was hardly in shape for all the physical activity that had been required of her today and would likely be required of her for as long as they had to live like this. But, like everything else, she had no choice but to suck it up and deal with it as best she could. 

They walked side by side, Lexa carrying the ax that had been left in the bed of the truck over her shoulder, her knife sheathed and the revolver stuffed into the waistband of her jeans. Clarke mused over the look and the confident way Lexa held herself, thinking she almost looked like a hero out of some comic book. They ran into multiple walkers on their way to town and Lexa dealt with most of them with a quick, almost elegant, swing of the ax. Clarke’s kills were far less graceful, but they got the job done. 

By the time they reached Azgeda, which was in as much a disheveled state as Arkadia was, Clarke was sweating and her feet felt sore. The shoes Stu had lent her were a tad bit too small for her, and it was getting more uncomfortable by the minute.

“Lexa, do you think we could stop at a clothing store while we’re here? These shoes are way too small for me.”

Lexa nodded. “Sure, but let’s get ourselves armed first, yeah? In case we run into any trouble.”

“Speak of the devil,” Clarke said as a walker popped out of an alley just up ahead.

“And the devil shall appear,” Lexa replied, getting ready to swing the ax but before she could, Clarke skillfully slid the knife into the walker’s head and he fell at her feet. Clarke smirked at Lexa. 

“See? I’m learning.” Clarke pointed out.

Lexa raised her eyebrows, surprised at how cavalier the blonde was becoming. It wasn’t a bad thing; Lexa was glad to see her starting to adapt to the situation. 

“C’mon, the police station should be down the next block,” Lexa answered.

As they walked, they came across multiple biters, each taking turns to be the one to put them down, working together when more than one crossed their paths. Clarke smiled slightly, liking how easily she and Lexa had formed a well-working team. Clarke knew she had plenty to learn, but Lexa had plenty to teach and she felt confident in their abilities to grow together. She didn’t know what it would be like to survive in this world alone, without anyone to keep you company or watch your back. 

Lexa was also slowly starting to recognize that having company wasn’t so bad, and hadn’t entirely realized how lonely she had been, over the last month, yes, but even over the last couple years. She had forgotten what it was like to fight alongside somebody, to have somebody else to count on; that hadn’t been something she’d experienced in a while, not since her second to last tour in Afghanistan, before she had been transferred from the squad she had always served with, to be placed in a new one, one reserved for Marines who had shown exemplary service and could handle the more dangerous missions assigned to that particular unit… But Lexa couldn’t think about that right now. So she refocussed her mind on what was in front of her, two walkers walking towards them, side by side. Lexa automatically took the one on the left, while Clarke handled the one on the right. Lexa was impressed with how much Clarke had improved today, becoming much more sure in her movements and not being so affected by taking down a walker. Maybe the close call today back at the farm had had one good side: it showed her she had it in her to survive, and that if she can fight her way through a horde of walkers, surely she can handle one or two random stragglers. 

When they reached the police station, the door was wide open, making Lexa feel doubtful that there would be many weapons left for the taking. But her and Clarke walked up the stairs to the door, regardless, figuring there might be something in there they could take. Lexa banged on the open door loudly with her fist before entering and stepped back, signaling with her hand for Clarke to follow. She figured it might be smart to draw out any walkers in there and kill them up front, instead of leaving them to hide in darkened rooms and around corners to jump out at them when they walked by. She knocked a few more times and heard some grunts and the sound of movement coming from the right. When the walker stumbled towards the door, Lexa swung her ax and neatly decapitated his head from his body. 

“Jesus,” Clarke mumbled, cringing. 

“Well, I don’t hear any more coming but we still need to be careful,” Lexa ordered and Clarke nodded, holding her knife up, prepared to strike as they walked into the deserted, ransacked police station. Lexa knew the armory would likely be downstairs and she and Clarke made their way through the building until they found the stairs. Walking down them, they arrived in a long hallway, multiple doors branching off it. There was a small gym, showers, and finally, a large room that had a collection of lockers to the left and a large green cage that looked like it once had held many guns. The door was open and most of the guns were gone, likely taken by desperate survivors wanting something to protect themselves… or to hurt others. Still, they weren’t all taken. Lexa saw that a couple rifles, a shotgun, and three handguns remained. Stacked underneath a table were some boxes of ammo. 

Lexa nodded appreciatively. “This should do.” 

She grabbed one of the rifles, positioning it against her shoulder and aiming down the sights before holding it back to look it over. It was her first time holding a rifle since being discharged from the Marines and she felt an uncharacteristic level of anxiety and dread flow through her, as she was inevitably reminded of the last time holding a gun like this. She placed it down on the table and started pulling the remaining boxes of ammo from under the table, grateful for the chance to distract herself. She knew she was going to have to get reacquainted with the rifle very soon and hoped the memories it triggered would dissipate as she got more used to the experience.

Clarke stood in the doorway of the armory, not really sure what else to do as Lexa opened up the boxes of ammo and started separating them.

“Ok, we have 4 boxes of ammo for the pistols and 3 boxes of ammo for the rifles. That means we have about 200 rounds for the pistols, and 60 for the rifles…” Lexa was mostly talking to herself. “Hm. I wish we had more ammo for the rifles but we can always pick some more up somewhere else.” 

“Will we have enough ammo to teach me to shoot?” Clarke asked.

Lexa nodded. “Yeah, we should be fine. We’ll just focus on handling a pistol for now since we have more bullets for that.”

Clarke sighed, relieved. She wasn’t sure she could handle a full on rifle anyway. 

They decided to take one rifle and two of the automatic pistols. Lexa found two belts with a holster attached in the locker room and helped Clarke get one on before switching out the belt she was wearing for one with a holster. Luckily her sheath for her knife could detach from her old belt and she reattached it next to the holster where a loaded pistol now sat. 

“Pistols are much heavier than they seem in the movies,” Clarke observed, staring down at her own pistol sitting against her hip. Lexa hadn’t loaded hers yet, wanting to wait until she could teach Clarke how to safely use a gun first.

“You’ll get used to it,” Lexa assured as she slid a loaded magazine into the rifle with a click. 

The sound of something moving around above them made Clarke look up nervously, and Lexa instinctively got into a fighter’s position, her rifle pointed at the ceiling above them as she listened carefully for more movement. It was easier holding the rifle now that she had something to point it at, a potential threat to investigate. 

“It could just be a walker-” Lexa held her hand up to Clarke, throwing a warning look at her, and Clarke immediately closed her mouth. 

Lexa grabbed the revolver that was still stuffed into her waistband and held it out to Clarke without removing her eyes from the ceiling as she tracked the sounds coming from above them. When a second passed and Clarke still didn’t take the gun, Lexa thrust it at her more forcefully, and then immediately held the rifle more securely against her when Clarke finally grabbed it. Right now, making sure Clarke had a feasible way to defend herself against whoever was upstairs was more important than following rules of gun safety. Most likely, she would never even have to use it. 

Lexa gestured for Clarke to follow her as she silently crossed the room, peeking her head out at the hallway as she did. It was still empty and she walked out into it, Clarke close behind. 

They made it to the bottom of the stairs and Lexa pushed Clarke back against the wall next to the stairwell, leaning back against it herself. She could hear two voices, one male, one female, arguing as they came slowly down the stairs, stopping repeatedly to argue more heatedly.

Lexa took a deep breath. “You should know that there are two people at the end of the stairway you are walking down, heavily armed. I’m telling you this so if you mean to come down here, you can do it with your hands up. If I don’t see your hands, I’m going to assume you are hiding a weapon and I’ll have no choice but to put a bullet in you. I don’t want to do that.” The voices had stopped mid-sentence as soon as she started speaking. There was a moment of silence before Lexa continued. “Are we clear?” 

Slowly she heard the two people descend the stairs and she trained the gun towards the landing at the bottom of the final step, preparing herself to shoot if the two didn’t comply with her instructions. She only relaxed slightly when she saw the man and the woman approach with their hands up, their faces clearly expressing their fear. But she kept them trained in her sights, in the chance they tried anything. 

“Lexa, they’re clearly unarmed, you don’t have to-” 

“Clarke.” Lexa cut off quietly but firmly enough to quell any further argument and Clarke silenced.

“M’am, I promise we mean you and your friend absolutely no harm. We aren’t even armed.” The man said, turning around to show Lexa his backside. The woman with him did the same.

“That’s why we came down here, to get some weapons, just like you must have.” The woman added. “Did you leave anything for us?”

Lexa didn’t respond, her face remaining stoic as she evaluated the two people in front of her.

“There’s still some left, but not much,” Clarke answered and Lexa tried not to roll her eyes, not wanting to betray her laser focus on the couple in front of her. 

“We’ll take anything we can get. It’s a dangerous world out there.” The woman answered.

“Now, how about you go your way and we go ours, ok?” The man asked, raising his eyebrows at Lexa. “There’s no need for this to end with somebody getting hurt.”

Lexa narrowed her eyes slightly. “Is that a threat?” She asked evenly.

“Lexa, c’mon. That was not a threat. You’re the one with the gun for God’s sake.” Clarke said, placing her hand on Lexa’s arm. Lexa tensed at the touch before brushing it off with a brief shake of her shoulders.

“I’d be a pretty stupid man to threaten somebody when I’m the one at gunpoint, wouldn’t I?” The man asked with a smile, one that did not reach his eyes. “And you already seem to know that stupid people don’t last long in this world, don’t you?”

Clarke was hardly paying attention to the man, just wanting to get Lexa and her out of here before anyone did get hurt. She could see the tension in Lexa’s stance, in her jaw, and didn’t want her to do something reckless, something she might regret later on when the emotions likely flooding her at the moment dissipated. Lexa and the man were staring at each other, the tension in the air almost palpable, and Clarke could see her finger that held the trigger twitch ever so slightly. 

“Lexa, please.” She whined and she felt something in that stance give, at least a little.

“Ok.” Lexa finally said, still not trusting the look in the man’s eyes. “You walk slowly to the left, hands still up and we’ll go up the stairs, and that’ll be the last we ever see each other. Is that clear?” 

“Crystal,” The man said, his smile widening as he complied. Lexa walked sideways towards the stairs, letting Clarke go up first, and climbed each step backward, making sure to keep the rifle trained on the man and woman until she was on the first floor again. Still, as Clarke walked ahead of her with barely a care in the world, she still crossed the room at an angle so she could watch their back as well as their front. She found the tension coiled in her didn’t loosen an inch, even when she stepped outside. Clarke was walking opposite the direction they approached from and Lexa could tell she was angry. 

“What the hell was that, Lexa?” Clarke asked as soon as Lexa was beside her, walking backward to keep the police station in view. “And what are you doing?” She had her rifle in hand, pointed at the ground, but all her muscles were on edge, every nerve ending in her body geared up, ready to spring into action at any moment. 

“That was me protecting us, princess.” Lexa scoffed. She was picking up her speed, wanting to get off the streets as quickly as they could as she constantly switched positions to watch their back and their front, wishing she had eyeballs on the back of her head so she could watch both. She didn’t quite trust Clarke enough to watch her back, especially the way she so quickly sided with those two strangers back there. She didn’t blame her; in fact, part of her did admire her compassion, the way she stuck to her principles. She only wished Clarke could have paid more attention to the man and the woman, sensed what Lexa had picked up off the bat: that something about those two had been off. But she knew they had different life experience: Lexa had been trained to perceive threats and excelled at it; her ability to read people and her intuitive nature allowed her to pick up on things most everyone else would look over. 

Clarke stopped walking, pulling Lexa to an abrupt halt. 

“They were clearly unarmed, Lexa.”

Lexa shook her head, letting out a huff of air. “That doesn’t mean they aren’t a danger.”

“Lexa.” Clarke protested. “You can’t just treat everyone you come across like they’re the enemy.”

Lexa’s eyes flashed and she looked at Clarke briefly before turning back to the police station. “Yes, I can.”

“No, you can’t. We should be working with other people, not fighting against them.”

“Those people were not looking to work with others, that much was clear, at least to me. If you paid more attention to what was in front of you, instead of letting your feelings blind you, you would have seen it too.”

Clarke was talking to her but Lexa could hardly pay attention to what Clarke was saying, her mind focussed on the sight of the man and the woman exiting the police station, the man with a rifle in his hands, and the woman with a shotgun. As they reached the sidewalk, spotting Lexa and Clarke up ahead, they began raising their guns and Lexa instinctively threw herself at Clarke bringing them to the ground and behind the safety of a car that had been parked perpendicular to the sidewalk as bullets fired over their heads. Lexa got into a crouching position, firing back multiple shots around the front of the car. As a rain of returning fire forced her to pull her head back, she noticed the woman fall with a cry. The man shouted in anger and Lexa could hear the sound of his gun firing get louder and louder as he came closer and closer. There was a pause and she could hear the sound of a magazine hitting the pavement and she sprang up, gun already in position, and fired two shots at the man struggling to click a new magazine in place, one hitting him in the neck, sending a rush of blood cascading down the rest of his body to meet the red bloom growing in his lower chest. He fell on his knees, gurgling as his mouth filled with blood before he collapsed face first on the ground. Lexa walked forward, towards the girl who was still on the ground, a bullet in her stomach. She made to grab the shotgun lying just out of her reach and Lexa kicked it away. 

“Why?” Lexa asked.

“We… wanted... your guns.” The woman managed to get out between gasps of pain, blood spilling out of her mouth.

“You wanted our guns,” Lexa repeated thoughtfully. Her eyes were soft, almost regretful as she looked down at the suffering woman. “It didn’t have to play out this way. My friend… she believed in you, even though I had a bad feeling about you from the start. Why did you have to prove me right?”

She shrugged, her chuckles turning into rough coughs as blood choked her. 

Clarke was walking up, tears spilling down her face, and she stopped at the sight of the woman dying. 

“The world’s changed.” The woman said in a croak. “All there’s left to do is fight.”

Lexa watched a single tear spill down her cheek as she looked back up at Lexa with a pleading look in her eye. 

“Your fight is over,” Lexa said softly.

The woman closed her eyes, a slight smile on her face as she nodded. She looked grateful when she opened her eyes again to see Lexa aiming her gun at her. 

Clarke yelled at Lexa to stop and then a single bullet ripped through the woman’s head, finally letting her rest. 

Clarke cried more, unable to stop the tears spilling from her eyes and she dropped the revolver and buried her face in her hands. 

Lexa put down her own gun and without even thinking about it, she pulled Clarke into a hug. Clarke wrapped her arms around Lexa, holding onto her tightly, almost desperately as she buried her face in her neck. Lexa didn’t say sorry, she didn’t say it was going to be ok, she didn’t say a word, knowing that that wasn’t what Clarke wanted right now. She just held her and let her cry, her hands rubbing her back soothingly as she rested her chin on top of Clarke’s head. She didn’t know how long they stayed like that until Clarke finally pulled away, sniffling lightly while she wiped her tears away. 

“They shot at us,” Clarke said quietly. “I would have died if you hadn’t pushed me out of the way.”

Lexa shrugged half-heartedly.

Clarke looked up at Lexa, the tears making her azure eyes shine. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry for doubting your instincts when you were right about them the whole time.”

“Don’t worry about it, Clarke,” Lexa said flatly, bending over to pick up her rifle.

“I know you’re mad. Just yell at me, tell me I’m stupid and naive and that I don’t have what it takes to survive in this world.”

“I’m not going to yell at you, Clarke,” Lexa said evenly. "But you have to realize that in order to survive we have to be wary of people until they give us a reason not to be." 

Clarke looked down at the still, lifeless body of the woman below them. “I wonder what she did before all this. Who she was as a person… until this world made her into someone else. It’s going to change all of us, isn’t it? We can’t be the people we were before and what then? What’s the point of trying to survive if we’re all monsters in the end?” 

Lexa unsheathed her knife, leaving Clarke’s side to take care of two walkers nearby. 

“Come on, Clarke. We shouldn’t be on the street like this.” Lexa said softly and Clarke nodded, taking one last look at the woman before bending down to retrieve the revolver off the ground.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lexa teaches Clarke how to shoot and we get a peek into Lexa's past.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The asterisks indicate that the following part is a flashback btw.

They stopped in a clothing store, where Clarke got some running shoes that actually fit and Lexa switched out the skinny jeans she was wearing for a pair of cargo pants. She also found a durable looking backpack she could use to carry the ammo she couldn’t fit in her pockets and any other supplies they came across. 

“I wish we didn’t have to leave that bag of food back at the truck,” Clarke said with a pout as they walked out of the store. 

“We’ll find some food. Let’s check the houses in town; maybe we can find something someone left behind.”

So they walked through the streets of the town until they came to a residential area. They broke into the first house on the corner, going from room to room to clear the house of any walkers that might be lurking around. Clarke was walking down the hallway and she could hear something thumping against the door at the far end. She braced herself, holding her knife tightly as she opened the door, quickly stepping back as the walker fell forward onto the ground in front of her. Clarke froze when she saw the walker was a boy no older than six, and even as he crawled towards her, arms reaching out and trying to grab her, Clarke could not will herself to move; she couldn’t do anything but stare in horror at the small boy, who should have been outside playing pretend with his friends or watching cartoons. Instead, his face, while in considerably better shape than many other walkers she had seen, was sickly, his mouth opening to let out a low groan. By the time a knife was plunged into his head, with a squelching noise Clarke would hear in her nightmares, his hand had clutched at her ankle. Clarke’s gaze moved to fall on Lexa, kneeling beside the boy as she withdrew the knife from his head. Her eyes looked up to meet Clarke’s, a knowing look in those green depths.

She rose to her feet slowly, sheathing her knife absentmindedly as she stepped into the room the boy had come from, wanting to make sure it was absolutely clear. 

Clarke stepped forward to enter the room, only to stop right outside the doorway. The room was clearly that of the boy’s, decorated to follow a space theme. His bed was in the shape of a rocket ship, glow in the dark stars were pasted on the ceiling, and pictures of astronauts, of nebulas, stars, planets, and whole galaxies adorned the wall. And while her heart panged at the endearing innocence of the room, that’s not what had stopped her in her tracks. Laying across the floor, about two feet from each other were two bodies, that of a man and a woman, a puddle of coagulated blood surrounding the gaping holes in both their heads. Bits of their brains were stuck to the carpet around them. A shotgun lay beside the man and it was clear to see what had transpired in this room, however long ago. The man had shot his wife, maybe it was a suicide pact they had made together, or maybe he had done it of his own accord, and then shot himself. Before that though, they had killed their son. 

“How did he turn?” Clarke asked, her voice seeming to come from far away. “The boy. He didn’t have any bites that I could see.”

Lexa shook her head slightly, unable to tear her head away from the sight in front of her. It wasn’t her first time seeing dead bodies, far from it, but that didn’t make it any easier. It was so easy for her to visualize in her brain exactly how the situation went down. She could see the father, waiting for his son to fall asleep before smothering him with a pillow perhaps, then his wife standing in front of him, unable to control the sobs urging to be let out, as she waited for the pain and the darkness that was sure to follow. The man turning the gun on himself before pulling the trigger for the second time. 

“He was a kid.” Clarke’s voice came in a squeak and Lexa finally looked away from the scene in front of her to look back at the stunned blonde behind her.

Lexa’s eyes looked defeated, in a way Clarke hadn’t seen since meeting her, not when they saw the herd of walkers moving in on them back at the farm, or even when those people had shot at them. It was hard for Clarke to reconcile that both those events had happened earlier this very same day, not even that long ago. She noticed a piece of paper sitting on the dresser and she stepped forward to grab it without even thinking about it.

Written across the paper, in neat handwriting was the following note: 

“‘Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player  
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,  
And then is heard no more. It is a tale  
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,  
Signifying nothing.’

To any human who finds us, let me be the first to tell you that trying to survive in such an unforgiving world is fruitless. Never has the human race been so face to face with its fragile mortality. Do yourself and those around you that you love and care about a favor, and make their deaths quick and painless, instead of inflicting on them the horror this world has become.”

Lexa read this note over Clarke’s shoulder, feeling the words echo in her brain. Without another word, Clarke stormed out of the room, the paper still in hand. 

Lexa caught up with her when they were outside, on the house’s dying front lawn. 

“Clarke.” Lexa started but immediately stopped when Clarke whipped around, her eyes hard and set.

“Teach me to shoot,” Clarke said.

“Clarke.” Lexa began again.

“Teach me to shoot,” Clarke repeated impatiently. 

Lexa sighed. “Why? So you can follow the advice some sicko who murdered their own kid wrote?” She gestured to the letter Clarke still held in her hand

Clarke made a scoffing noise as she ripped the letter repeatedly in half before throwing the pieces into the wind. “I’d hardly need a lesson on shooting a gun if that’s what I intended to do with it, now would I?”

Lexa conceded that that was true. “Look, what we saw back there-”

“Was the worst thing I’d ever seen in my life. And I don’t want to talk about it.” Clarke finished. “So teach me how to shoot.” 

Lexa set up some targets for Clarke to shoot in the backyard, mostly stuff she had found in the recycling bins in the garage. First, she used Clarke’s unloaded pistol to demonstrate the safety, how to load and unload a magazine and rack the slide of the handgun. She showed Clarke the proper way to hold and aim the gun. At one point Lexa stood behind her and wrapped her arms around Clarke’s to adjust her stance. She could hear Clarke’s breath hitch slightly as her body was flush against hers and Lexa had pulled away quickly, stammering over her instructions. 

“I think you’re ready to actually shoot, Clarke,” Lexa announced.

Clarke looked at her doubtfully. “You do?”

Lexa smiled. “Don’t look so surprised, princess.”

Clarke ignored the pet name. “I want to see you shoot first.” 

Lexa raised one eyebrow. “Are you sure? I don’t want to intimidate you.”

“Shut up and show me what you got, Commander,” Clarke said jokingly. 

“Commander? I like the sound of that. I might just have you call me that for the rest of practice.”

Clarke rolled her eyes but she was smiling. “Fat chance. Now, are you going to shoot or what?”

But before Clarke had even finished her sentence, Lexa had her gun out of her holster in a flash and proceeded to shoot down every target she had set up one after the other before spinning the gun in her hand and swiftly back into the holster. Clarke had jumped and let out a little shriek at the shock of the gun going off, her ears practically ringing but she couldn’t help but gape, first at the downed targets and then at Lexa who had a smirk on her face.

Clarke blinked a few times and then shook her head as if she could shake the surprise off her face that way. 

“Your turn,” Lexa replied, walking away to set up another round of targets for Clarke to shoot.

“You’re such a show-off.” Clarke huffed when Lexa walked back to her side.

“I am the Commander.” Lexa pointed out confidently and Clarke rolled her eyes, mumbling something about how she should never have called her that, as she removed her own gun from her holster and loaded the magazine Lexa held out to her. She got into her stance, aiming her gun at the first target, a large empty jar of peanut butter. She pressed down on the trigger, the slight recoil and the loud sound of the gun going off making her jump ever so slightly. She couldn’t deny the rush that went through her at firing the gun for the first time, however, even when she saw she had missed the peanut butter jar entirely. 

“It’s ok. It’s a bit of a shock the first time. Again.” Lexa said and Clarke got back into her stance. This time when she pressed the trigger, she didn’t jump but she still didn’t make the target. She slumped her shoulders, pouting slightly.

“You have to squeeze the trigger slowly. You’re pressing down on it too fast, which makes the gun move a little to the side and off target. Try again, slower this time.” Lexa advised.

Clarke took a deep breath, aiming her gun at the peanut butter jar once again. This time she took Lexa’s advice, squeezing the trigger slowly, and she shrieked in delight when the bullet tore through the jar.

Lexa smiled, unable to not get sucked into the joy radiating off the blonde as she looked proudly back at Lexa. 

They practiced for some more time, Lexa giving Clarke a few tips here and there but feeling pretty impressed with how Clarke had improved in just the short time. Clarke was surprised when she began hitting most of the targets, especially when she started taking much less time to aim beforehand. She had no idea shooting the gun would come so naturally to her. At the same time, it was one thing to shoot an unmoving piece of trash. But to shoot at a walker moving towards her in the hopes of eating her, or even multiple walkers at one time? That was something else. And she wasn’t ready to even think about having to use the gun on another human. She felt like even if she miraculously became the best shooter to ever live, she wouldn’t have it in her to pull the trigger when it was a human at the other end of the barrel. 

The house next door was empty, devoid of any walkers or brutal murder scenes, which was a relief to both Lexa and Clarke. They found a can of chicken noodle soup and some canned sliced peaches in the cupboard and a few bottles of water in the fridge, which smelled of rotten food. They sat next to each other at the kitchen island as they ate.

“These are so good.” Clarke practically moaned in pleasure as she ate one of the peaches, which were almost sickeningly sweet.

“Hmmm.” Lexa hummed in agreement as she snagged two on the tines of her fork and stuffed both in her mouth.

“Hey!” Clarke cried, holding the can closer to her, almost protectively. “I’m eating them too, you know.”

Lexa smirked as she tried to get her fork into the can again while Clarke kept pulling it away.

“Not until I catch up.” Clarke scolded and Lexa rolled her eyes and pouted.

“It’s not my fault you’re a slow eater.” She mumbled before taking a long sip of water. 

“I’m trying to savor them instead of stuffing as many as I can into my mouth, like some barbarian.” 

“I’m not a barbarian. I’m a Commander, remember? And as Commander, I’m entitled to a higher ration of food.” Lexa explained as she practically dived across Clarke to get another peach, who held the can even further away, laughing as she attempted to fend off Lexa with one hand. 

“As Commander,” Clarke said mockingly, “You should be behaving more maturely.”

Lexa immediately sat up ramrod straight, holding her chin high as she looked down at Clarke with a stoic expression. She looked regal, and Clarke couldn’t help but think Commander would have been a fitting role for her. She wondered what her title was in the Marines. 

“Mockery is not the product of a strong mind, Clarke.” Lexa chided sternly, but Clarke could swear she could see the humor in those green eyes and a ghost of a smile on her full lips. “Especially when directed towards your Commander.” 

“I’m sincerely regretting ever calling you that,” Clarke said with a smile. 

Lexa relaxed her position, smiling back at Clarke as she held out the can of peaches towards her. They ate in comfortable silence for a beat, both thinking quietly to themselves.

“I’m sorry,” Clarke said, pulling Lexa out of her thoughts. 

“For what?”

“For lots of things. For not seeing how shifty those people were back at the station. For doubting your instincts, even though they ended up saving both our lives.”

Lexa nodded slightly. “I appreciate that, Clarke. I know you think I’m harsh. That I’m some monster.”

Clarke recalled the argument they had had this morning back at the farm when Lexa had been teaching her to fight. Clarke had indeed called her a monster and Clarke felt a wave of guilt wash over her. Lexa had said some bad stuff too, but that wasn’t an excuse. “I’m sorry I ever called you that. I didn’t mean that. I said it because I was angry. I don’t think you are a monster, Lexa. How could I after you saved me from those guys, buried Stu with me, and agreed to stick around even though you hardly know me and I’m a pain in the ass.” Clarke smiled as Lexa chuckled. 

“I’m sorry too, for the things I said,” Lexa replied.

Clarke nodded. “For now on, we have to just try to focus on working as a team, on learning to trust each other.”

“That doesn’t come easily to me,” Lexa admitted.

“I know. And we hardly know each other so that doesn’t make it any easier.” Clarke agreed. “But the fact that you’ve even agreed to stick around with me when I’m sure most other people would’ve left my useless ass long ago. That’s something, Lexa.”

“You’re not useless, Clarke.” Lexa corrected. But Lexa knew what Clarke meant. She wasn’t proud of it but she knew if it was anyone else, she probably wouldn’t have agreed to stick around like she had with Clarke. The decision to join up with her had surprised herself, but she knew it was because there was something about Clarke that gave her pause and made it much harder for her to adhere to her usual desire to keep other people at a distance. Because how could she stand to let anyone in, when she’s seen some of the worst things the world has to offer when she’s seen what humans are capable of… what she’s capable of. Yet, she felt herself slowly letting in Clarke, smiling and joking with her, almost despite herself and despite the voice in her head saying it was a bad idea, that she was setting herself up to be hurt in a world where that was all too common. 

 

* * *

Going to the job fair was mandatory for all seniors. It was supposed to give students a chance to meet with experts in the fields students were interested in pursuing and ask them any questions they might have for them. Lexa had tried explaining to the counselor that there was simply no point in her attending the fair because it wasn’t like she was going to college. College just wasn’t in the cards for people like her. She was likely looking at a future of working multiple minimum wage jobs… if she didn’t follow in her dad’s footsteps and end up in prison, that is. It wasn’t entirely impossible. She’d make much more money dealing drugs than doing anything else. Plus, it wasn’t like she stayed out of trouble. She’d been suspended three times for getting into fights. No one seemed to care that she was never the one to instigate them. She almost wanted to start a fight herself, just to spite the principal, who held an obvious disdain for her from the start. The only thing stopping her was the beating she knew would be waiting for her back home, courtesy of her foster dad. That was one bully she couldn’t stand up to. She had learned that the hard way. 

She didn’t care what she did for a living; as long as she was an adult, free from the state, she’d be happy. At least content. What the fuck was happy anyway?

She went to the job fair; if she skipped it, it would likely get her in even more trouble with the school, which in turn would get her in trouble with Pete. She’d rather take walking around a crowded, overheated gym, full of people sitting at tables with a banner announcing each person’s given profession. People shaking hands, making connections, getting started on the path to the bright future that awaited them. 

Lexa wandered around, not interacting with anyone, just going through the motions so it looked like she was being involved until she noticed a table in the back that hardly anyone visited. The banner had a seal and the ‘US Marine Corps’ written across it in big block letters. Intense. It practically screamed at you. Lexa approached it, not considering it seriously, just wanting to hear what the woman behind the table, dressed in an officer’s uniform, and standing with her back straight despite the chair next to her, had to say. 

“I didn’t realize the army got a booth at the job fair,” Lexa commented.

“They don’t. This booth is for the Marines.” The woman replied. 

Lexa nodded. “Ok. Lay it on me.”

“Excuse me, ma'am?”

“Your spiel to convince me to enlist. Lay it on me.”

“If I have to convince you, you don’t belong in the Marines anyway.” The woman countered.

“I just supposed that’s what you would be doing here: trying to recruit soldiers.”

“It’s of my view that soldiers should volunteer, as opposed to being sought out. I’m not here to tell anyone who comes up to me to join the Marines, simply because it’s not suited for just anyone. I’m here for people who have already seriously considered enlisting so I can offer advice as someone who's had firsthand experience.”

Lexa took a moment to consider that. “So why did you join, if you don’t mind my asking?”

“I joined because my father was a Marine and I wanted to follow in his footsteps. More than that though, I joined because I wanted to be a part of something that served a bigger purpose.”

“And what’s that?”

“It’s different for everyone. For me, my purpose was to make the world a better place, a safer place.”

Lexa nodded thoughtfully. She wasn’t sure where she stood on that. To her, fighting for peace seemed to have a deep-rooted irony but she couldn’t help but admire the pride with which this soldier held herself like she was ready to face anything. Lexa could hardly face her own foster dad, although she had on multiple occasions if only to draw his attention to her and away from the younger foster kids she shared the home with. She knew in a heartbeat that, while Pete had no qualms with showing force with kids he was supposed to be protecting, he’d be too much of a coward to face the woman in front of her right now. She felt something in her chest loosen at the thought of having such a commanding presence no one dared cross you. 

She talked to the woman for the rest of the job fair, asking her questions, which she seemed happy to provide answers for. By the time the job fair ended, her mind was turning an idea over and over.

A semester later, she graduated from high school. She didn’t bother going to the ceremony, not seeing the point in sitting for hours to walk across a stage, especially when she’d be the only one without family members to cheer for her and take pictures of her when her name was called. Instead, she picked up her diploma from the front office and took the bus immediately to the Marines enlistment office. 

Her decision to enlist hadn’t come easy to her but it was an event that had occurred two months after going to the job fair, two months she had spent doing further research, telling herself she was doing it out of curiosity more than anything else, that had finally tipped the scales. She was sitting cross-legged on her bed, the top part of a bunk bed that she shared with Lily, a shy fifth-grader who had only been placed here a few weeks prior. It wasn’t usual for her to be here during the day; she tried to stay out as long as she could, only really coming to this house to sleep and eat, but she had picked up a book on the Marines at the school library and felt like reading it in the privacy of her own room. Well, the most privacy she could get anyway. She heard the front door slamming and someone stepping loudly into the house and she knew Pete just got home and was in a particularly bad mood, by the sound of it. She slipped her book under her pillow and jumped off the bunk bed and was out of her room and down the stairs by the time Pete had made it into the small living room. 

Lexa stopped in the hallway, noting the mess on the living room floor, and she swallowed thickly, knowing the fate that was waiting for whoever had left it. Pete stood over the mess, seething at it almost like he thought if he glared hard enough at it, it would clean itself. Lexa looked up to see Aden, a sweet 9-year-old boy and by far her favorite foster sibling, enter the room from the door that connected the living room to the kitchen and freeze at the sight of Pete standing over the mess on the floor. 

“What did I tell you, boy, about leaving your shit around?” Pete yelled, making Aden wince. 

“Pete, I’ll clean it up, it’s-” Lexa walked towards the mess until Pete extended an arm, hitting her in the chest and pushing her back and onto the floor. 

“Shut up.” He commanded harshly before looking back up at a wide-eyed Aden.

There was a tense silence between the two and just as Aden opened his mouth, likely to apologize profusely in the hopes of appeasing to Pete, Pete crossed the room swiftly and delivered a backhanded slap the force of which whipped Aden’s head back.   
Lexa rose to her feet, staying back at first, thinking maybe Pete was done and would leave Aden alone; a lot of the times he would deliver a blow like that for punishment for some crime and that would be that. But this time was not one of those times.

Instead, before Lexa could even move her feet forward, Pete’s fist collided squarely with Aden’s nose with a large crack and a rush of blood. Aden’s eyes registered the pain before he collapsed onto the floor in a heap. Lexa screamed, noting the still lifelessness behind those eyes, which were usually so bright and cheerful as Lexa ran around the park with him, catching him in her arms and swinging him around much to the glee of the younger child, or read to him at night after he woke up from some nightmare crying loud enough that Lexa could hear him in the next room. Climbing into bed with him, she would hold him until he calmed down enough to be read his favorite story while drifting back to sleep, any fear in his eyes completely overshadowed by the love and affection he had for the girl beside him. 

There was a dreadful silence in the air, thick enough that Lexa could almost taste it as she stood paralyzed, unable to tear her eyes away from Aden’s still body, which looked so small, so much smaller than it did when he was racing Lexa up the jungle gym on the playground or wrestling with Lexa in the grass, and unable to move her feet from the position she now stood in. 

She found out later that when Pete had punched Aden, the force of it had broken his nose and shoved the bone into his brain, in addition to fracturing his skull. Pete was arrested for murder and Lexa was placed into another home, which she’d stay in until she turned 18 the next month. The couple who took her in were probably the nicest people she had stayed with in her all her time in the foster care system but none of it mattered to Lexa. She went through the next months in a haze, unable to get the image of Aden’s body lying there out of her mind. He was 9 years old, senselessly killed over a pile of Legos. And Lexa hadn’t been able to do a damn thing to stop it. In her mind, the situation played out much differently. When she rushed forward to clean up the mess, Pete’s arm didn’t shove her down; instead, she was able to take the hit, grab his arm and flip him onto the ground and effectively knock him out so he couldn’t hurt anyone else. Or maybe when she hit the ground she was able to get to her feet much quicker and cross the room, throwing herself against Pete’s body to prevent the fatal blow from ever being able to land. Any number of scenarios played out in her head where Lexa was able to stop Pete before Aden suffered the consequences of her inaction. She knew that the woman who manned the booth for the Marines at the job fair would have been able to stop him. 

That’s how she knew she could no longer go through life afraid to act or simply unable to. Aden had already died because of that; it was up to her to ensure nobody else had to. 

Two months later, when the officer at the enlistment office asked her why she wanted to join the Marines, she told him she was doing it to serve her country and to protect people. That wasn’t entirely true.

She was doing it for Aden.

* * *

Clarke and Lexa decided to spend the night in the house they had found the soup and the peaches. They were exhausted from the day they had and the house had two bedrooms, meaning both women would be able to sleep in a bed tonight. Lexa wasn’t exactly excited to sleep, knowing what was waiting for her when she did. Last night she had slept dreamlessly for the first time in a long, long time but she didn’t expect to be so lucky tonight. 

Clarke wanted desperately to sleep but wasn’t confident in her ability to actually fall asleep and the idea of lying in bed, alone in the dark with her thoughts terrified her. Thoughts of her mom, of whether she had survived and was living much like Clarke was at the moment. Clarke knew her mom would have gone to the nearest city like the government had been telling people to, in hopes of volunteering her medical services for the sanctuaries that were supposed to be set up there but Clarke knew from Stu that that hadn’t entirely worked out. Then, there were her friends to think about… Her life in general, really. There was so much she had lost, and she hadn’t even been around to lose it. She just woke up and it was gone. 20 years it took her to build a life that was ripped right out from under her in just a month. 

So both girls sat together on the couch, not really saying much, just content to have someone beside them as each got lost in their own thoughts. The only light came from the full moon outside, which cast a delicate glow on everything. Lexa’s eyes shined in the moonlight, her sharp features looking softer somehow. It was Clarke who broke the silence.

“When I was a kid my dad used to take me to work with him sometimes. I’d follow him around like his own personal shadow, and he was too happy introducing me to everyone he’d have to talk to that day. I guess most kids would have been bored but I loved it. Just being with him made me happy, even if he was just sitting at his desk doing paperwork while I sat on the other side drawing pictures on copy paper. I remember once I accidentally drew on the back of this report he had to turn in to his boss. He didn’t get mad; just smiled and said my drawing was the only interesting part of the report and turned it in just like that.” Clarke smiled fondly. She wasn’t even sure what made her share this memory with Lexa, especially since it was quite the non-sequitur; just a desire to feel less alone, she supposed. Lexa smiled softly.

“He sounds like a good dad.”

“He was.” Clarke agreed and Lexa tilted her head to the side, questioning silently. “He died four years ago.”

Lexa remained silent, knowing most words were too insufficient, and it was better to keep quiet than say something meaningless. Clarke didn’t need Lexa to say anything; she got enough from the softening of her eyes, eyes that told her she understood. 

“My mom used to spend hours braiding my hair when I was a kid. I used to hate it; always pouting, trying to wriggle out of her way. But she was just as stubborn as I was. No matter how much I complained she would continue braiding my hair, sometimes singing to me in an attempt to calm me down. As soon as she was done, I’d jump up, ready to go play outside, where I’d ruin the hard work she just did. I’d come home and half of them would be completely unraveled, while the rest had pieces sticking out here and there. My mom would just laugh and call me her little rascal, said I should have grown up in the woods, raised by wolves.” Lexa smiled wistfully, her eyes unfocused, because in her mind she wasn’t sitting on the couch in a dark house in a ghost town; she was running through the front door of her the apartment she had shared with her mother until she was 7 years old, her mom looking up from the book he had curled up with on her favorite chair, opening her arms for Lexa to jump into. A tentative hand on her arm crashed her back into reality, and she swallowed back the lump that had formed in her throat and the tears that had formed in her eyes, abruptly standing up from the couch. 

“I think it’s best we go to bed now, Clarke. It’s late and we need to be rested for tomorrow.” Lexa said flatly. 

“Sure, Lexa. Good night.” 

“Good night,” Lexa replied by rote as she retreated up the stairs, leaving Clarke on the couch to contemplate the brief moment the two had just shared.

Lexa hadn’t talked to anyone about her mother, ever really. It was something she hadn’t really thought about; that part of her life had been so long ago, felt to Lexa like a different life altogether. It wasn’t just that she was so young the last time she saw her mom; it was that the contrast between her life with her mother and her life after was so stark she had trouble reconciling the two. It almost felt like a dream when she did think of it like it was part of some movie instead of her life.

When Lexa finally fell asleep, she had dreams of a much different kind; ones filled with hoarse shouts, pained screams, gunfire, and blood. So much blood.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lexa and Clarke discuss how to work together better and make a supply run to Target.

Lexa woke up in the early hours of the morning, jerking straight up with a gasp. She could feel sweat beading on her forehead and she had to take several minutes to calm her breathing and get reoriented with her surroundings. She had fallen asleep fully clothed, hadn’t even taken off her shoes; she had to be ready to run at a moment’s notice. All she had to do was put her belt with its attached holster and sheath around her waist before heading out the door, only stopping at the top of the stairs when she remembered Clarke asleep in the next room. She needed to go outside, blow off some steam, otherwise she’d be in a state of anxiety for the rest of the day, well more so than she already was. But she didn’t want Clarke to wake up while she was gone and think that she had abandoned her. She considered waking her up, taking her with her but she didn’t trust Clarke quite enough to do that. The events of the previous couple days had shown that when it came to matters of survival, Clarke wasn’t reliable. She was improving, but not at a pace that warranted Lexa placing her trust in her at the moment, not in that way at least. It seemed over the last two days, despite having just met the blonde, her emotions were getting the best of her as well: she was sharing things with Clarke she hadn’t shared with anyone else, and letting a side of her come out that hadn’t seen the light of day since her relationship with Costia fell apart two years before. She hardly seemed to have control over it; it was like she couldn’t help it. But she could no longer let these feelings cloud her judgment, like Clarke’s feelings surely clouded hers. Lexa understood the position Clarke was in; she wasn’t used to having to fight to survive. In Lexa’s eyes, that gave Clarke all the more reason to follow along with what Lexa thought was best, given she had more experience in the area. 

That would have to be a conversation for later though. Right now, she needed to focus on having some time to herself so she found a piece of paper and a pen and wrote a short note telling Clarke that she was going to be out for a bit but that she’d be back as soon as she could. Lexa grabbed her rifle and the backpack on the way out the door, thinking she might find some useful supplies. 

She didn’t end up doing much scavenging, however. Mostly she just took the time to be outside, at a time when it was just barely light enough to see by. It almost gave the illusion that things were normal again. Almost.

Lexa unsheathed her knife at the sight of three walkers stumbling towards her, cutting across the first one’s neck before quickly bringing the knife up and back down to cut a slit down the top of the second’s head. She sensed the third behind her and swiftly brought her leg around in a graceful kick, knocking the legs of the walker out from under him. Before he could so much as reach towards Lexa, a knife sank into his head before being slid right out again.

Lexa turned around, making sure no others were coming at her. There were five or six up ahead, but she had a while before they could reach her. 

She didn’t know what she was doing out here, only that she woke up some mornings, usually after a particularly bad night, and it was like a biological imperative for her to cruise around the area she found herself holing up for the night for no real purpose other than putting down walkers as some form of sick release. She told herself, like she told herself this morning, that she was going outside to start the day, to scavenge for supplies, but each time she found herself willingly seeking out walkers to kill, unable to stop herself… well, more like not wanting to. She told herself she was doing the world a service; by killing a walker she was saving the lives of anyone who might otherwise have been killed by said walker. How many walkers had she killed? Countless. So how many lives had she saved? Countless. And while that was an added benefit, that wasn’t really why she was doing it and she knew it. She was doing it because it seemed to be the only way to get the memories to stop, just stop, and give her peace, even if it’s only for a minute. Sometimes a minute of peace is enough. 

So she killed the 6 walkers when they finally reached her, and she killed three more after that. She broke into a few houses, went from room to room, killing whatever walkers she found. Hey, she even picked up some more canned soup (no canned peaches, unfortunately) and a couple of them were beef stew, which Lexa knew Clarke had seemed to like best. So it wasn’t like she was coming back empty-handed.  
When she finally made her way back to the house her and Clarke had stayed at, it had started getting light outside and Clarke was sitting on the front porch steps. Lexa sat next to her with a sigh. 

“Where did you go?” Clarke asked.

“Just around the neighborhood. Found us this.” Lexa held out the two cans of beef stew towards Clarke, whose face brightened as she grabbed one and opened the top of it, which was much like a soda can lid. 

“I feel bad that you went alone.”

Lexa shrugged. “I don’t mind. Really.”

They each ate their own can of cold soup in silence. 

“I think we should have a conversation. About things.” Lexa said finally.

Clarke gave her a teasing smile. “That’s awfully vague, Lexa.” 

Lexa smirked. “About what you said earlier. About us working as a team, and trusting each other more.”

Clarke nodded attentively, her face becoming more serious.

“In order for me to trust you, in general, and also with my life because that’s what being a team against whatever we face in this world will mean: it’s like the Marines that way. In the Marines, you have to trust the members of your unit with your life and they have to trust you with theirs… there isn’t a bond that runs deeper than that, Clarke. At least that’s how it’s supposed to be, in a good unit. Obviously, it’s not always like that. But if you have any hope of surviving the mission, whatever that may be, it’s got to be as a team. Because if there is even one person you don’t trust to have your back when the going gets rough… everything else falls apart.” Lexa paused, trying to gather her thoughts together to get them back on track and Clarke waited patiently for her to continue.

“And one of the ways the Marines accomplished that was by establishing a chain of command, right? Soldiers with less experience take orders from soldiers with more experience, soldiers who have proved themselves capable of leading. And I think it might be beneficial for us both if we adopted a version of that.”

“Is this your roundabout way of trying to get me to call you Commander?” Clarke asked with a smile.

Lexa held up her hands. “Hey, you said it not me.”

Clarke laughed. 

“In all seriousness, it’s my roundabout way of saying if we are going to be working together as a team, I need to be one to call the shots. I know what it takes to survive; I’ve been surviving in this world for a month now, and war zones for years before that. I’m not saying you can’t have any say; I’m not suggesting a dictatorship in any way shape or form. I just think in order for me to feel comfortable and for both of us to be safe it would be best if I took the lead on things, at least until you’ve reached a place where…”

“Where I’m not an inadequate mess?” Clarke asked mildly.

“Again, you said it, not me.”

Clarke chuckled. “That makes sense to me, Lexa. I’m sorry you even had to ask. It should’ve been a given that you would take the lead on things with your experience and I’m sorry for not being more respectful of that. I don’t want it to sound like I’m making an excuse, but things have been so crazy lately, I don’t think there’s been but a few moments where I was in a right state of mind.”

“That will get easier with time,” Lexa assured. 

“I hope so.” 

“I accept your apology, Clarke and I’m glad you agreed. Because I want to be able to trust you, Clarke.”

“And I want to show you I’m worthy of being trusted, especially after everything you’ve done for me… Commander.” Clarke said the last part with a smile and Lexa chuckled as she ate the last of her beef stew. 

Clarke and Lexa headed out after eating their breakfast. Lexa had mentioned it might be a good idea to stock up on supplies and Clarke told her of a Target that was about 30 minutes away, driving that is. At first, they were able to hotwire a car but ten minutes out of Azgeda, it became impossible to weave the car around the traffic jam that had built up on the way out of town. They had no choice but to walk the rest of the way. They came across multiple walkers, which they put down with relative ease. 

“What’s our plan, Lexa?” Clarke asked as she pulled her knife out of her latest kill’s head.

“We’re going to Target, remember?”

“After that,” Clarke explained.

Lexa shrugged. “Keep moving.”

Clarke nodded, biting her tongue.

Lexa looked at Clarke for a moment, noting the hesitance in Clarke’s eyes. “Clarke?”

“Yes?”

Lexa laughed, shaking her head as she kept walking. “You’re something else, you know that?”

“What did I do?” Clarke asked. 

“You’re terrible at trying to hold back what you’re feeling. It’s always written across your face.”

“Unlike you, Commander?” Clarke responded teasingly. 

Lexa smirked. “More and more, I’m liking that title, even if you are saying it teasingly. Yes, I am more stoic than most people; it’s not a bad thing.”

“Well, you’re not as stoic as you’d want people to believe.”

“Is that so?” Lexa asked, cocking an eyebrow. 

Clarke glanced over at Lexa, noting the shine in those green eyes of hers, eyes that seemed to give you a window into the mind behind them. “Your eyes,” Clarke commented. 

Lexa’s head tilted slightly to the side and her eyebrows furrowed. “What about them?”

Clarke bit her lip nervously, unsure how to express what she meant properly. “Well, you have pretty eyes, but it’s more than that. They change. Sometimes, like when you first met me or when we ran into those people in the police station, or when you’re in one of your intense brooding moods… which is most of the time.”

Lexa snorted.

“They’re almost hard, piercing. It’s like whatever you look at is being held, wriggling like a bug trapped under a glass.”

Lexa smiled, pleased at the idea of having such a commanding glare.

“But other times,” Clarke continued, “They’re softer like you’re actually opening yourself up to the world, instead of closing yourself off from it.” Clarke stopped, realizing she had been thinking about this way too much to be considered normal and also realizing she wanted to see the other ways those green eyes could change. When she finally looked at Lexa, she was staring thoughtfully at her, her eyes containing a warmth she had yet to see, before finally both sets of eyes faced forward again and a group of walkers coming towards them interrupted any further conversation.

When Clarke met Lexa’s eyes again, her eyes were hard, focused on the task in front of them. She raised her eyebrows in a silent question towards Clarke, and Clarke knew she was asking if she could count on her. The number of walkers coming towards them was larger than they’d had to deal with so far, except the herd back at the farm. Clarke counted about 15. The fact that they also had to weave through the cars forcing them to split up somewhat made it easier; even so, it would be easy for the group to overpower a couple people if they weren’t careful. Clarke nodded at Lexa confidently, desperate to show Lexa that she could handle herself in situations like this, that she wasn’t going to be some helpless person Lexa had to protect. She could contribute.

Lexa saw the determination in the set of Clarke’s jaw, in the coolness of her eyes and felt her lips quirk up in a hint of a smile. This was the part of Clarke she had been waiting to come out, the part she had seen back in the forest the day she met her, when Clarke had gutted that walker in a desperation to stay alive, when Clarke had punched her while Lexa had been teaching her to fight, and when Clarke had fought with her through the wave of walkers that had threatened to overtake them on the way to the truck. The moment passed between them for a second before both women directed their attention to the walkers lurching towards them, their incessant groaning drowning out the rest of their thoughts as Lexa brought back the butt of her rifle and slammed it into the first walker’s face, causing him to fall back against the walker behind him, toppling them both to the floor. Lexa dropped the rifle, letting it lay limply against her front, held up only by its strap, as she unsheathed her knife and swiped it across the next incoming walker.

Clarke, who had chosen to carry the ax this morning when they left the house thinking it might be easier to use than a kitchen knife, swung the blade to meet the side of a walker’s head, where it stuck halfway through, forcing Clarke to step on the fallen walker’s chest for leverage in order to pull it out. When she stood upright again, it was just in time to bury the ax in the next walker’s neck, sending a spurt of blood rushing out, but luckily severing the top of the spinal cord enough that the walker couldn’t do anything but collapse on top of the first one. 

In the corner of her eye, she could see Lexa briskly taking down her section of walkers, but she didn’t let that distract her. Instead, she focussed on the four heading her way, swinging the ax back so that when they got close enough the ax found its home embedded in the first one’s head, and she roughly kicked the next one back with her foot while removing the ax. She took down the next two with a powerful swing that ripped into the first one’s head cleaving half of it off, allowing her to effectively take down the next one.

As Lexa fought her own share of walkers, keeping on her toes as she slashed through head after head, not letting herself stay still for even a moment, she couldn’t help but glance over at Clarke any time she could to check how she was faring. Each time, she saw that, even when the blonde struggled (like when her ax got stuck in her victim’s head), she wasn’t letting anything take her down, and Lexa couldn’t help but smile as she kept on with her own fighting. 

By the time Clarke swung her ax through the last of the walkers, both girls were breathing heavily. They stared at each other across the car that stood between them, their chests moving rapidly up and down. In Lexa’s eyes, Clarke could see pride and a little bit of admiration while a smile played on her lips. Clarke felt her heartbeat speed up, even more, her chest feeling like it was going to burst as she immediately craved to see more of that look. 

Lexa unzipped her backpack as she came around the car, pulling out the last water bottle they were able to scavenge from the fridge before leaving, and holding it out to Clarke.

“Drink some water. ” Lexa offered, her face flushed but her eyes dancing with excitement. 

Clarke took it and drank a quarter of it gratefully before handing it back to Lexa, who took two large gulps and placed it back in the backpack. 

“You did well, Clarke,” Lexa said softly.

Clarke couldn’t stop the smile that spread across her face at the compliment. “I don’t think I moved quite as gracefully as you did.”

“You were watching how I moved, huh?” Lexa asked, cocking her eyebrow. 

“Yeah, you know, just making sure you were handling yourself ok,” Clarke answered innocently. Was Lexa flirting with her?

“Hmm.” Lexa hummed. “I can handle myself all right.” 

And Clarke couldn’t help but drop her eyes as she walked away, appreciating the way her ass moved as she walked, before shaking her head as if to clear it. Get it together, Clarke scolded herself as she jogged to catch up with Lexa. 

“We were talking about our plan before the walkers interrupted us,” Lexa said.

“Oh, right.”

“You didn’t seem to fancy the idea of moving around.”

Clarke shrugged. “I guess I’m just hoping that there will be a time in the future where we won’t have to. Where we can stay in one place.”

Lexa nodded. “That would be nice, wouldn’t it?”

“We know there are other survivors… maybe some of them banded together, formed a community. Maybe we will find a place where a semblance of civilization exists.”

Lexa studied Clarke as she looked at the road ahead of them, trees bordering one side and grasslands on the other. 

“Maybe,” Lexa said. 

“What was it like for you? When all this started?” Clarke asked.

“I was at home. I saw it on the news at first, didn’t really pay much attention to it at first. Then it became impossible not to when sirens were going off every second, helicopters flying by, and then all my neighbors left, probably to evacuate to Polis, but I just stayed where I was.”

Clarke furrowed her eyebrows. That didn’t sound like the Lexa she had gotten to know over the last few days. 

Lexa stared straight ahead as she talked, not meeting Clarke’s eyes. 

“I didn’t care. The world was falling apart around me and I didn’t care. It’s not like I wanted people to be hurt and dying, not at all; I just… over the last year, I couldn’t care about anything. I wasn’t really there.” 

“What made you finally come out?” Clarke asked.

Lexa’s jaw tensed, the muscles clearly standing out. “Somebody screaming from the streets. I ignored it at first, just kept drinking, which had become a regular habit for me. But that’s something I couldn’t ignore; the pain, the fear, in that scream it dug into my brain like a hook until I just couldn’t stand it anymore. I ran outside, the rush of adrenaline I got sobered me up thank god, but it was too late. I was too late. The woman was dead by the time I got there, one of those things eating her.” 

“Lexa-”

“Don’t tell me it’s not my fault, Clarke. I don’t want to hear it. If I had gotten there sooner-”

“Lexa-”

“People die around me die, Clarke.” She interrupted harshly, her eyes flashing with anger.

“Not everyone,” Clarke argued. “Not me.”

Lexa narrowed her eyes at Clarke, but she remained quiet.

“You saved me, Lexa. Multiple times. And you tried to save her. Do you know how many people wouldn’t have bothered even trying? I doubt you were the only one who heard her screams, yet you were the only one who showed up. That matters, Lexa. That sets you apart from most other people.” Clarke paused, trying to search Lexa’s face to see if any of that had hit home for her. It seemed it had because her teeth unclenched and the look of anger in her eyes had passed, replaced with a grim weariness that broke Clarke’s heart. 

“C’mon, we should get moving, Clarke. We need to get to the store.” Lexa said quietly.

Clarke nodded. “Sure, Lex. Let’s go.”

A small smile and a quizzical look from Lexa made Clarke’s heart speed up. There was something so endearingly pure about the expression on her face that Clarke couldn’t help but return the smile.

“Lex?” She questioned.

Clarke shrugged. “Sorry, it just kind of slipped out.”

“I like it.” 

Clarke smiled. “Yeah?”

Lexa seemed to debate something before replying. “My mom used to call me Lexi.”

Clarke smile grew. “You really love her.”

Lexa nodded, adjusting the rifle in her hands. “I do, yes.”

Before Clarke could reply, Lexa sped up a little and used the butt of her rifle as a bludgeon against a walker that had been three cars ahead. Clarke winced slightly as she watched her slam the walker against the hood of a car and bring the rifle down again and again until the walker finally stilled; the force of her hits left brain matter smeared across the car and she used the walker’s shirt to wipe it off the butt of the gun. 

“We got to pick up our speed. We should have been there by now.” Lexa yelled out to Clarke.

Lexa walked ahead of Clarke the rest of the way. Clarke didn’t bother trying to catch up, sensing that Lexa would prefer the time to herself. It gave Clarke her own time to think, about Lexa and her past, and about her mom and her friends. Her dorm roommate Raven, who had quickly become one of her best friends along with Octavia and her boyfriend Lincoln. They had met and fallen in love in high school and followed each other to college and were absolutely devoted to each other. Raven would regularly tease them about how disgusting they were but Clarke thought it was sweet how much they cared for one another. Octavia’s brother Bellamy was known to hang around their group, despite being a year older than them. She thought Bell was okay, although most times he came off too strong and rubbed people the wrong way. That’s why it was good Octavia was his sister; she was about the only person who could put him in his place. There were Harper and Monroe, two girls who Clarke had met freshman year in her English Lit class, who were practically joined at the hip, and Monty and Jasper, two boys similarly joined at the hip who had been introduced to Clarke by Octavia. She wondered how they had all fared; if they were even alive, and her heart panged at the idea that she’d likely never find out either way. She hoped they had somehow stuck together and helped each other survive. 

By the time they reached Target, Clarke’s legs were sore from walking so much and her shoulder hurt from swinging the ax. She stood beside Lexa, looking ahead at the building in front of them, and the crowd of walkers who wandered around in the parking lot in front of it. Lexa and Clarke were far enough away that the walkers hadn’t spotted them yet and they stood there for a moment, contemplating the scene in front of them.

“We can’t catch a break, can we?” Lexa muttered.

“Maybe we can use the guns?” Clarke offered but Lexa shook her head.

“There’s too many.” 

Clarke looked back at the wandering mass of bodies. 

“We’ll have to go around. Hopefully, there’s not a similar crowd waiting in the back and we can just go in through the back.” 

“That sounds like a good idea.”

Lexa nodded. “We have to be quiet, even when we are inside the store.”

Clarke reached out to Lexa, who had started to walk away, and she tilted her head in a silent question. 

“What’s wrong, Clarke?” 

Clarke shook her head, dropping her hand from Lexa’s arm. “Nevermind. Let’s get going.”

This time it was Lexa who reached out to gently grab Clarke’s arm. “Clarke, are you scared?” She asked softly, her eyes staring so intently, but so delicately at the same time, that Clarke couldn’t have lied if she wanted to.

“Just… what if they hear us? There’s so many of them. I’ve never seen this many of them, not even back at the farm.”

“I know.” Lexa agreed.

“Is whatever we find in there, assuming it hasn’t already been picked clean by other survivors, going to be worth the risk?” Clarke asked Lexa. 

Lexa evaluated the question but she didn’t have to for long. Suddenly, they heard the sound of a car approaching fast from the left of them, blasting loud music, straight towards the crowd of walkers, who immediately started walking towards the noise. The car quickly spun around, leaving trails of burnt rubber, so it was facing towards the road and started jerking forward intermittently, stopping to let the walkers catch up a little before rushing forward again. Lexa and Clarke stood watching the scene before them, as the car led the walkers away from Target and down the road, before turning to look at each other with surprised expressions on their faces. 

“That effectively solved our problem,” Clarke commented.

“And possibly creates another,” Lexa replied, clutching her gun tighter. “Get your gun out, Clarke.”

“Is that an order, Commander?” Clarke asked, making Lexa roll her eyes. Clarke got out her pistol, which was loaded this time.

“Why don’t we go to the store and get our stuff? I don’t think the person will be back anytime soon. They’re going to have to figure out how to get out of the car without being killed by the walkers and maybe we can be gone by the time they do.” Clarke suggested.

Lexa shook her head. “They wouldn’t have done that if they didn’t have a plan in place to get away. They’ll be here soon.”

“Shouldn’t we at least hide behind a car or something? In case they do shoot at us?”

“I think if they wanted us dead we would be,” Lexa replied. 

Clarke conceded that she had a point. If whoever was in the car wanted to kill them all they’d have to do is run them over or lead the horde of walkers to them. 

“I don’t want to be inside when they get back because I worry it might make them want to kill us. People have become very territorial about supplies, as we saw yesterday. But maybe if we wait out here we can come to an agreement with them.”

Clarke smiled at Lexa, her willingness to work with others making her trust and admire her that much more. It also made her realize how wrong she was yesterday when she questioned Lexa’s suspicion towards the people at the police station. She had assumed Lexa was being heartless, that it was paranoia driving her to act so hostile. But Clarke could see now that that was far from the truth. She wasn’t working off of a paranoia but her own exceptional instincts. Clarke had realized that as soon as the man and woman had shot at them. But now seeing her willingness to give the person or people in the car a chance cemented it in her mind that Lexa really had been acting intuitively as opposed to being driven by a paranoia derived from her obviously rough past. She immediately felt guilty for ever doubting her and craved for an opportunity to make it up to her. 

Ahead, they could see a figure walking towards them carrying a baseball bat slung over her shoulder. A few walkers were trailing after her, and she swiftly turned around, swinging the bat as she did to hit the first walker on the side of his head and hitting him again until he finally crumpled at her feet. She took the next two down in a similar fashion before turning back around and walking towards them again. She stopped a few feet from them after Lexa signaled with her gun that that was close enough. 

“Pretty neat trick you did there.” Lexa complimented. “Where’d you learn to drive like that?” 

“I used to drag race, you know before the apocalypse wiped out most of my competition. Not that I needed any help with that.” The girl replied with a cocky grin. 

“I can see that,” Lexa replied. “Good thing for us too. You made this shopping trip considerably easy for all of us.”

The girl shrugged. “I’ve been wanting to come here for a couple days now. I figure the crowd of walkers effectively put off most survivors from going in the store, meaning there’ll be more supplies available.”

Lexa nodded. “Precisely. Which means there’s plenty for all three of us.”

The girl smiled. “Indeed. I’m Emori, by the way.” She stepped forward and held out her hand.

“I’m Clarke.” Clarke introduced, taking Emori’s hand after seeing Lexa’s hesitation. 

“Lexa,” Lexa said. She shook Emori’s hand this time when it was held out to her.

“I suggest we get a move on. The walkers might be coming back soon.” Emori said and they all started walking towards the store’s entrance.

“How did you get out of the car?” Clarke asked. “Without being overtaken by the walkers?”

“I have been hunting for the last two days, trying to find something big enough that I could use to lure the walkers away and today I finally came across a wild boar with a few baby ones. I was able to kill them with the last of my ammo.” Emori gestured towards the pistol stuffed into her pants. “I threw the three baby boars into the crowd and they all just swarmed them. Only a few walkers noticed me slipping away.” 

“Smart.” Lexa complimented mildly. “Risky, but smart.”

“That just about describes me,” Emori replied as they entered the store. 

The store was definitely well-stocked and Lexa and Clarke took their time going up and down the aisles, avoiding the produce section whose stench was absolutely pungent from the all the rotten fruits and vegetables. Emori went in her own direction and they occasionally ran into her but they kept out of each other’s way. 

Clarke stopped in the bra and underwear section, happy to finally be able to change into a fresh set of underwear and to actually wear a bra again. She picked out a comfortable, durable looking sports bra and some underwear and went into the fitting rooms to change. They went to the canned food section and chose an assortment of beef stew, chicken and dumplings, and mac and cheese. On their way back out of the food section, they passed the frozen food section and Clarke stopped, looking longingly down the aisle. Lexa, noticing that Clarke was no longer beside her, stopped as well and looked at Clarke questioningly.

“What’s wrong?”

Clarke startled slightly as if she had been lost in thought and turned to Lexa. “What? Nothing.”

“You looked sad for a second there,” Lexa commented.

Clarke shrugged. “It’s nothing.” Lexa raised her eyebrows. “You’ll think it’s stupid.”

Lexa smiled slightly, finding Clarke’s shyness kind of adorable. “Well, as the Commander, I order you to tell me.” Lexa teased, standing up straighter and holding her chin high.

Clarke laughed, rolling her eyes. “Wouldn’t the Commander take orders from the Princess? Since that’s what you’ve taken to calling me, that makes me your superior.”

“The Commander takes orders from no one.” Lexa insisted, narrowing her eyes. 

“Well, that’s an insult to the Princess’s royalty.” Clarke countered.

“The Commander respects the royalty of the Princess, but the Commander acts of her own accord, not under the power of someone else, royalty or not.”

Clarke raised her eyebrows. “That’s mighty convenient for the Commander. What does the Princess get out of this arrangement?”

“The Commander pledges fealty to her. Isn’t that the biggest sign of respect? The Commander chooses of her own accord to be loyal, not because she’s expected to as a subject.”

“Did you two sniff some of the bath salts in aisle 3 or is this some kinky roleplaying shit that I’m interrupting?” Emori asked, interrupting Clarke from forming a reply. She was standing next to them, zipping up a backpack filled with chips and candy. 

Clarke blushed. “No, we’re not… into that. We’re not even a couple.”

“So the bath salts then?”

Lexa chuckled. “No, we’re not druggies either.”

“Hey, no judgment. We could use an escape more than ever right now.” Emori replied. “Well, I was just walking through, making sure I didn’t miss anything. I’ll be heading out now.”

Lexa held out her hand. “Thanks again, for clearing out the walkers and being cool about letting us shop with you.”

Emori smiled and shook her hand. “Don’t mention it. We have to look out for each other, you know. It’s the living versus the dead. We shouldn’t make the dead’s job any easier by turning on each other.” 

Clarke nodded. “It’s nice to meet a like-minded person.”

Emori tipped her a two-fingered salute. “Good luck out there.”

“May we meet again,” Lexa replied and Emori waved her hand over her shoulder as she walked away. 

Lexa turned back to Clarke with a smile. “So, princess, why were you looking so forlorn? You know, other than the fact that the world as we know it has ended and people come back from the dead as cannibalistic monsters?” 

Clarke snorted. After a beat, she quietly replied, “I was just thinking about all the ice cream that has melted and gone to waste.” 

Lexa bit back a laugh, not wanting to hurt Clarke’s feelings, but when the blonde turned to look at her, Lexa couldn’t help it and burst out laughing. Clarke wanted to be mad but seeing Lexa laugh so freely was almost magical. It was the most carefree she’d ever seen her and she cherished the musical sound of her laugh, the merry shine in her eyes. And she couldn’t stop herself from laughing along with her.

“It’s just one more tragedy in a world full of it. We shouldn’t be laughing; we should be mourning.” Clarke insisted. “No ice cream, no popsicles. No more a lot of things I guess.”

That brought them down from their laughter. 

“God, it’s like I’ve been so focused on losing the big stuff, my mom, my friends, civilization as a whole, that I didn’t even stop to think about the small things we’ve lost. Like ice cream, and art, and music, and being able to walk down the street and appreciate the world around you, all the different people with their own complex life that you will never know about. Going to a coffee shop, singing along to the radio in the car, and going out to eat. I know it seems so stupid to miss things like that… when we’ve lost so much else, but I do.” 

Clarke stared into green eyes that were staring at her intently, pain etched into her face. 

“It’s not stupid,” Lexa said quietly. “I… There’s a lot of things I regret, but one of them is how I didn’t take the time to appreciate things like that. Going to war… it changed me. And after my last tour, I was no better than those walkers out there. Absolutely dead to the world. I barely went outside, I was a drunk. I was done with the Marines, done with going to war, and that year was my one chance to enjoy a life at peace, and I blew it. And I didn’t even realize it until a new war began, one we probably won’t come back from. It got me off my couch, it sobered me up, and now, I can’t run away from the fact that fighting is all I know how to do, that I’m no good at living when there’s not a war to fight in.” 

“Maybe we’ll find another chance at peace, and this time we won’t blow it. Not just you, or me, but all of us. Maybe this will be the war that ends all wars and from it, we can build a peace that lasts.” Clarke paused, searching Lexa’s eyes with her own. “It might be far-fetched but so is people rising from the dead, yet here we are. I know you’ve had a difficult time in life, that whatever you’ve been through is like a tattoo in your brain that can’t wash out… and it hurts. It throbs. But you’re still here, you haven’t given up, and that makes me think there’s a part of you, however small, that is holding out for something better. That better exists. We just have to find it; we both do.”

Lexa looked into Clarke’s eyes, which were steady and insistent and tinged with hope. Hope was not something Lexa had much of but she did her best to draw some from the blue orbs staring pleadingly back at her. 

“Maybe we lost ice cream, but Target has a big candy section,” Lexa replied with a shy smile. 

Clarke smiled back. “Assuming Emori didn’t take most of it.”

Lexa chuckled. “She better not have taken all the Snickers bars, that’s for sure. Otherwise, I’d have no choice but to go into Commander mode and hunt her down.” Lexa winked at Clarke. 

“Well, that’s nothing compared to what I’d do to her if there are no more Reese’s cups left.” Clarke countered.

Lexa whistled. “You take your sugar very seriously.”

When they made it to the candy section, there was plenty of Snickers and Reese’s waiting for them.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We learn more about Lexa's past and Clarke and Lexa connect more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So just a fair warning: this chapter is mostly a flashback of Lexa's and it contains some Lexa/Costia. Just wanted to remind you that Clexa is endgame, no question about that, so don't worry!

That night they set up camp in a bungalow they found off the main road, not far from the Target. It was on a half-acre plot of land that gradually turned into a forest. They ate dinner (more beef stew) on the couch inside, sitting side by side as they exchanged funny stories from their past, trying to lighten the mood while existing in such dire circumstances. Clarke was surprised at how many happy stories Lexa had about the Marines, given that it usually seemed to be a sore subject for her. But her eyes brightened considerably when she told Clarke of Gustus, another soldier in the unit she had served in for three years and who had clearly become a dear friend of hers, despite him being in his 30s and her being 19 when they first met. She told Clarke that she had even gone back with him when they were on leave to stay with him, his wife, and two kids, because he had offered to let her stay with him once he found out she didn’t have anywhere else to go. Clarke didn’t ask why that was; sensing that was something Lexa would tell her in time when she was ready to, and not wanting to spoil the good mood.

“He ended up losing the bet so he had to do a full loop around the base, naked, during a sandstorm. Right before he made it back into our tent, he ran into Lieutenant Jaha, who was a complete hardass. Jaha gave him a full half hour lecture -we timed it-, right there, while Gustus was still butt naked and being assaulted by gusts of sand that went into places sand should not go in.” Lexa chuckled and Clarke laughed, imagining the scene in her mind’s eye.

“Did he do that on purpose?” Clarke asked and Lexa nodded.

“Oh, but of course. It was the perfect punishment. I’m surprised he didn’t make him stay out there all night and invite the whole camp to come watch him. He probably would’ve if he thought he could get away with it. Luckily for Gustus, there are laws against that kind of thing.” 

Clarke couldn’t stop giggling. “My friend’s boyfriend did something like that. Last winter, we all went to this party and got super drunk, and my friend Octavia told her boyfriend Lincoln that if he stood out in the snow for five minutes stark naked, she’d… well, it was some sexual favor, but for the life of me I can’t remember, which is probably a good thing.” 

Lexa’s laugh cut her off and Clarke was happy at the interruption.

“I don’t think I’ve seen a man get up that quickly in my entire life. He was out the door, and rid of every article of clothing, like that.” Clarke snapped her fingers and chuckled.

“Did he stay out for five minutes?” Lexa asked, amused.

“He did, and he was rewarded greatly for it,” Clarke answered with a laugh. 

“Oh, man. Those were the days, huh?” Lexa mused, unwrapping one of the Snickers bars she had snagged. Clarke dug into her Reese’s, unable to watch someone else indulge in chocolate without having some herself. 

Clarke sighed. “Yeah. It’s hard knowing that I’ll probably never see them again. That I don’t even know what happened to them.”

Lexa nodded sympathetically. “I’m sorry, Clarke.”

Clarke smiled at her softly, the smile not reaching her eyes, which remained somber. “Me too. How about you? It must be hard for you, not knowing how Gustus and his family are doing in all this.”

Clarke knew immediately that that was the wrong thing to say due to the way Lexa clenched her jaw, the humor, and warmth disappearing from her eyes. She wished she could take it back so they could continue laughing and connecting; if nothing else she wished it was possible to kick herself in the face for being so stupid. 

“I’m sorry if I pried,” Clarke said. 

“Don’t worry about it, Clarke. I think it’s time we go to bed. It’s late and we don’t want to be tired tomorrow.” Lexa said flatly. “It would only make us reckless.”

Clarke nodded, getting up awkwardly from her spot on the couch. “Good night, Lex.” 

Her lips twitched faintly at the nickname but her eyes remained hard as stone. “Good night, Clarke.”

Lexa walked around her and disappeared into one of the bedrooms, leaning against the door as soon as it was closed and taking a shaky breath. It had been nice to reminisce about her time in the Marines, about the parts that had actually been positive, as opposed to the parts that still left her jerking awake in the middle of the night, body shaking, tears streaming down her face. The problem was that the positive parts were intrinsically linked with the negative parts, which was why Lexa avoided talking about the subject altogether. But today, for the first time, she felt herself wanting to share her experience with someone, with Clarke. And so she had, sticking closely to the parts she remembered fondly, but inevitably, even those fond memories turned on her. It wasn’t Clarke’s fault; she had asked a normal question, with good intentions. She had no way of knowing that by asking that question she was opening up a door in Lexa’s mind that Lexa would prefer to stay closed. Although Lexa guessed that even without that question, that door would have opened up anyway; her memories were the key. 

* * *  
Lexa was packing her minuscule amount of belongings into the green bag the Marines had supplied her with. It now contained a few books, some clothes, a picture of her mom she had carried with her ever since she died, and her journal. She was going back to the states for the first time since being shipped out just over a year ago and she felt like a whole new person. She had entered the Marines as a broken, downtrodden 19-year-old, after a year of rigorous training that left her physically exhausted but mentally exalted, and now she was going back home as a confident (probably too much for her own good, as Gustus would say), relatively together 20-year-old. Although Lexa doubted she could really call it home. The last time she had considered America her home she had been 7 years old, too young to know much better. She had had a mom who loved her. Now she had nothing waiting for her back home. Just two weeks of staying in whatever cheap motel she could find in a city she had never been to. The plane would take all the departing soldiers in the camp from Afghanistan to Germany and from there to Polis, the capital city in the USA. From there, it was up to the soldiers to get to wherever they called home. Lexa had decided to just stay in Polis, not seeing the point in paying for a flight to TonDC where she had grown up when there was nothing there for her anymore, hadn’t been for the last 13 years. Honestly, if it was up to her she wouldn’t have taken the time off at all. She knew going home would only bring back painful memories of her childhood, memories she had flown across the world to fight in a war in order to forget. For her, fighting someone else’s war was easier than fighting her own, which she knew most people wouldn’t understand. The Marines gave her purpose, forced her to direct her attention outside of herself, towards the world, towards the enemies who wanted them dead, and towards her unit, who she needed to protect. She wasn’t sure how she’d feel when she wasn’t stuck in a war zone, when she wasn’t being shot at. She didn’t know how to walk down the streets of a city, past the fast food restaurants, and clothing stores, among the tide of people rushing to get to work or rushing to get home from work; every time she thought about it it made her sick. Because only one thought (“this is what I’m risking my life to protect? So people can eat Big Macs and shop at Macy’s?”) would cross her mind when she did, one that made everything she was doing, everything everyone was doing, seem so pointless. But Gustus had insisted she take the time off, telling her that she would lose her mind if she didn’t. He had been relentless, and while she appreciated the fact that he cared for her and was trying to look out for her he didn’t exactly know her situation. But she had listened anyway, God knows why. 

She carried the bag over her shoulder, feeling like a low budget Santa Claus, and walked towards the LZ, where the plane was situated, its ramp down, exposing the belly of the plane, soldiers milling about as they loaded up the plane or chatted excitedly about what they were planning to do once they got home. Lexa approached, wearing her uniform pants and boots and a green t-shirt, her uniform shirt draped over her other shoulder. 

The soldiers all greeted her, some holding out a hand and pulling her into a one-arm hug, slapping her back as they enthused about how drunk they were going to get, and how many women they were going to sleep with. Lexa didn’t respond, offering hesitant laughs instead. She didn’t much care for how eager some of the male soldiers were to prove how macho they were, especially because some of them definitely seemed to be doing it solely for her as if they thought that if they acted manly enough, it would somehow make her not a lesbian anymore. She was grateful for Gustus, who often times acted as a buffer between her and the men who clearly had no respect for her or the other female soldiers in their unit, and for the other female soldiers themselves, who always had each other’s back. She was lucky, however; the men in her unit were respectful of her and treated her like any other soldier. 

Gustus approached her, his bag much fuller than hers. Gustus had a very domineering stature, his bulk making him seem even more intimidating. And yes, when he needed to be he was intimidating indeed. But for the most part, he was the kindest man she had ever met; he could make anyone laugh and he had a big heart. Within minutes of meeting him, he was apt to show you pictures of his wife and his two daughters, his eyes shining with pride as he told stories about his wife’s success in starting her own dancing studio, his oldest daughter making captain of her basketball team, and the youngest, who had lost a spelling bee when she spelled an entirely different word when asked to spell “beach”, much to the audience of parent’s amusement and the judge’s horror. Gustus said through tears of laughter that his little girl just stood there, confused why everyone was reacting that way. 

Gustus greeted Lexa warmly before being roped into a conversation about the first thing he was going to do when he got home.

“I’m going to kiss my wife and hug my daughters,” Gustus said proudly, ignoring the derisive laughs that greeted his answer. “What? You asked; that’s what I’m going to do.” 

“You guys should be jealous. He was three people who love him back home. What do you have?” Lexa retorted, much to the amusement of the group.

“What about you, Lexa?” Gustus asked once the other soldiers wandered away to help move the process along. 

Lexa shrugged. “Probably just find a place to stay and crash.”

Gustus’ eyebrows furrowed. “What do you mean? You don’t have a place to stay?”

Lexa shook her head. “Not really, no.”

Before Gustus could say anything the pilot announced that everyone who was leaving needed to board and everyone who was staying needed to get the hell out of the way. Gustus and her sat next to each other on the plane but the plane was much too loud to allow much talking. 

They ended up boarding the same plane that would take them to Polis but they weren’t seated next to each other. When the plane landed 9 hours later and Lexa walked down the jetway, feeling more terrified about stepping out into the world than she did about going into battle, she heard Gustus’ voice calling out for her to wait. 

“Just wait right here, ok? I want to talk to you but first I need to say hi to my girls.”

Lexa nodded and watched, smiling, as he ran towards a woman standing behind two girls, one looking to be about 10, and the other 6, and swept them into his arms. The scene was emotional and many people stopped to watch the man in uniform reuniting with his family. Gustus and his family were crying as he hugged them all tightly, trying to solidify this moment as something that was happening in reality and not part of some dream. After about ten minutes of embracing and talking animatedly, he seemed to get more serious as he talked to his wife about something, his face worried. They glanced over at Lexa a few times, making her feel uneasy. Other people were looking at her as well, noting her uniform, offering her grateful smiles and pats on the shoulders and all of it felt too overwhelming, the lights too bright, the noise around her too loud, which was ridiculous because the sounds of guns firing, and bombs going off, and tanks moving and helicopters taking off was much much louder, the sounds of people screaming much more deafening. Yet, it was this she couldn’t handle. It was standing in an airport, for the first time in a year she wasn’t in danger of losing her life, around people who looked at her like she was a hero, that made her feel like she was going to faint until she felt a strong arm grasping her bicep and her vision cleared, focussing on Gustus standing right in front of her. She realized her heart was racing, and her face was breaking out in a sweat even though the airport was air-conditioned. 

“Lexa, you ok?” He asked.

Lexa nodded, unable to speak at the moment.

Gustus looked at her worriedly before glancing back at his waiting family. “I came over here to invite you to stay at my house. We have a spare bedroom you could use and you’re welcome to join us for dinner and whatever else we’ll be doing these next two weeks. Or not. Whatever you’re comfortable with. But my wife would love to meet you and so would my daughters.”

Lexa gaped at him, unable to comprehend what he was offering her. “Gustus, no. I couldn’t intrude on your time with your family. I know how much they mean to you and how little you get to see them.” She said when she finally found her voice.

“You wouldn’t be intruding. In fact, the idea of you spending your leave all alone would make me feel guilty, given that I was the one who insisted you take the leave in the first place, so if you don’t come you’ll be spoiling my time with my family.” Gustus said with a teasing smile.

Lexa smiled back shakily and opened her mouth to protest further but was stopped by Gustus holding up a finger.

“Look, you don’t have to decide now. Why don’t you at least come over for dinner? You can leave afterward if you want. Although it would mean a lot to me if you stayed.”

An hour later, Gustus’ wife, Amelia, was pulling up to a two-story home in a suburb of Polis. Gustus had told Lexa to sit up front; he squeezed into the backseat, wanting to be close to his daughters. Lexa spent the ride talking to Amelia, who was just as kind as her husband. She told Lexa funny stories about Gustus, who pretended to be upset at her for embarrassing him in front of a fellow Marine, but his wide grin betrayed him.

As soon as they entered the house, Gustus’ youngest daughter, Brook, was grabbing onto Lexa’s hand and pulling her towards her room so she could show her her Lego set. Lexa was hesitant at first; it was her first time interacting one on one with a kid since Aden, whose loss weighed heavily on her, but Brook was taken with her and broke through her defenses easily as she showed Lexa all the things she had built so far. Lexa helped her build new structures, Brook telling her what piece she needed, Lexa digging through the pile of blocks to find it. By the time Gustus came in, saying it was time for dinner, Brook was wearing Lexa’s uniform hat and calling herself Captain. Gustus laughed at the sight, remarking to Lexa that if Jaha could see her now, taking orders from a 6-year-old, he’d be livid. Lexa shrugged, saying Jaha wouldn’t dare question Brook’s authority. 

Lexa actually had fun at dinner. She didn’t say much; it was enough just to see her friend look happier than she had ever seen him and to see how much this family loved and cared for one another. She felt a twinge in her chest, knowing she had never really had this; at least not since she was very young, but she pushed those thoughts away. This was why she was risking her life; this is what she was fighting to protect. So that families like Gustus’ can love and care for one another and live a life of happiness.

When dinner was over, Amelia insisted Lexa stay the night and Lexa agreed. When Lexa woke up the next morning, Brook was in bed next to her, a stuffed dog wrapped in her arms, and Lexa couldn’t hold back a smile. She had actually slept well last night. Breakfast was another family affair, filled with laughs, love, and lots of pancakes. 

Lexa played a game of basketball with Gustus and his elder daughter Lily, along with a teenage boy from next door named Brian. Lexa and Lily were on the same team playing against the boys and they beat them, easily. Gustus’ size was about the only advantage he had in basketball. 

Gustus downed a glass of water in the kitchen, pouring one for Lexa. They watched as Lily and the boy started a game of horse.

“Let me take you out tonight,” Gustus said.

“What? Like to dinner?”

“No, to Polis. We can go to a club or something.”

Lexa raised her eyebrows. “A club?”

“You ever been to one?”

Lexa shook her head. “I’m not even of age.”

Gustus waved his hand. “Don’t worry about that. This is your first time back stateside. We both deserve a night out.”

“Alright, as long as Amelia’s ok with it. I don’t want to get on her bad side.”

Gustus snorted. “Believe me, you don’t.”

So they went out, Lexa feeling kind of skeptical about the idea of going to a club where there was going to be a lot of people and loud music. She hoped that whatever had come over her in the airport wouldn’t happen again. 

Alcohol helped. Evidently, Gustus was friends with the bouncer of the club they went to, and he let her in, saying it’s the least he could do for someone who was willing to die for their country. Lexa smiled at him, although statements like that always made her feel uncomfortable. Gustus went to go get her a drink while she stood by an empty table, near the dance floor. She looked around at the people dancing, talking, drinking, just generally having fun, and all she could think about was being back in the desert, sun beating down on her, a tank to her left, and the CO shouting at everyone as mortar shells went off, as men and women around her were being-

“You don’t look like you’re having fun!” A woman who had approached her dragged her away from her thoughts and Lexa had to blink several times to get her vision to focus. She was blonde, brown eyed, and was absolutely beautiful in Lexa’s eyes. Lexa supposed Gilbert Gottfried would have looked beautiful after what she had just been imagining, but she didn’t think that was it. This girl was just a knock-out. “Is there anything I can do change that?” The girl asked, raising her voice slightly to be heard over the music.

“You can tell me your name!” Lexa yelled back and the girl bit her lip and smiled. Fuck, Lexa thought. She knew she was a goner.

“Wouldn’t it be more fun to leave you guessing?” 

Lexa smirked. “Well, how about a dance, then?”

The girl raised one eyebrow. “That’s mighty presumptuous of you. You’re lucky I have a thing for forward women.”

Gustus arrived at that moment, drinks in hand. “Oh, am I interrupting something?”

Lexa smiled at him. “No, not at all. Um, look, I’m here with my friend, so.”

The girl nodded. “Got it. It was nice meeting you.”

Gustus glared at Lexa after the girl walked away. “What was that?”

“What was what?”

“That woman was so into you. Why’d you send her away?”

“Because I came here with you. It’d be rude of me to ditch you.”

“Lexa, I took you here so you could have a fun night. Now, go. Have a fun night. I’m a big boy. I can take care of myself.”

“Gustus, you’re far too nice to me.”

Gustus shrugged. “Nonsense. Go get em’, tiger.”

Lexa grabbed her drink off the table and downed it in one gulp. “Liquid courage.”

“You’re a goddamn Marine. You’ve got all the courage you could ever need. Now, go.” 

Lexa disappeared into the crowd, trying to find the girl. Bodies pushed against her but she held her ground until finally, she spotted the girl sitting at one of the booths, drinking, a guy talking to her. Lexa hung back, watching them, waiting for the guy to leave, until she noticed the girl’s body language revealing her discomfort. 

Lexa approached. “Hey, Betty! It’s so good to see you after it’s been so long. When was the last time again? High school? How have you been?” She asked excitedly.

The girl smiled at her, her eyes silently thanking her. The guy turned to Lexa, looking annoyed but he left after mumbling goodbye.

“Thanks for that.” The girl said, sipping her drink.

“Anytime. Can I sit?” Lexa gestured to the seat across from her.

“Go right ahead. What happened to your friend?”

Lexa shrugged. “He reminded me what an idiot I would be if I left tonight without talking to the prettiest girl here.”

She rolled her eyes. “Does that line ever work for you?”

Lexa shook her head. “It’s not a line.”

Something in Lexa’s eyes told the girl she was sincere and she felt a heat building within her.

“I think you’ve earned the right to know my name.” The girl said.

“Oh yeah?”

“I’m Costia.”

“I’m Lexa.” 

When they shook hands, they both felt the electricity that passed through them.

They spent the rest of the night talking. Even when Gustus came up and told Lexa he had to go home, Lexa asked him if it would be alright if he went home alone, and she could take a cab back when she was ready. He gave her a knowing smile and left. Lexa didn’t keep track of the hours they spent in that booth, neither of them ordering any more drinks (not that Lexa could if she wanted to) but it was late at night (or very early in the morning depending on how you looked at it) by the time they walked out of the club together. 

“So,” Lexa said as they stood next to other by the side of the door.

“So,” Costia replied with a smile.

Eyes glanced down at lips and back up and then both girls were stepping forward, tilting their heads as their lips met, softly at first and then quickly deepening as tongues became involved, and hands grasped tightly at waists and in hair, and when they pulled apart, realizing they were in public, they stopped only long enough to call a cab to Costia’s apartment. Once they got there, through the door and into the elevator, the kiss started up again in earnest. Hands desperately grabbing at each other as if both girls were afraid the other would float away if they didn’t hold them down. 

By the time they made it to Costia’s apartment and into her bedroom, Lexa felt like they had bumped into every wall and every piece of furniture and her body screamed out for release.

The next morning she woke up to a warm body pressed against her, a head buried in the crook of her neck, and she knew she didn’t want to ever leave this position. So they didn’t. They spent the rest of the day in bed together, cuddling, talking, having sex, and only getting up to eat and take bathroom breaks. 

Lexa told Costia she had to ship out in two weeks and Costia told her that meant they had to make the most of the time they had. So Lexa called Gustus and told him she found somewhere to stay, but that she was super grateful for his hospitality. Gustus told her he had heard that joke about lesbians and U-Hauls but hadn’t given it much credit until now. Lexa hung up, laughing, repeating the joke to Costia who shrugged before enveloping her in another kiss. 

The next two weeks were utterly blissful for Lexa as every minute of it was spent with Costia, who had absolutely blindsided her. She didn’t know she could connect with someone so quickly. Someone who appeared to feel the same way about her.

Two nights before she was due to leave, they talked about their relationship. Costia said she was willing to wait for Lexa, that she couldn’t imagine being with anyone else after these two weeks. They could make it work: write letters, Lexa could call her using the satellite phone and video chat when she could. Lexa told her she could take another leave in a few months, which gave them something to look forward to.  
Lexa went back to Afghanistan, almost regretfully. It was hard to leave Costia behind, to go from cozy days spent in bed, to a hot desert, dodging gunfire. Lexa didn’t know how Gustus could do it, leaving behind a wife and two kids. Lexa wasn’t sure she would have the strength. 

The next year was rough but it was also the best year of Lexa’s life. She finally had something to fight for. Something waiting for her back home. Someone. They wrote letters back and forth, talked on the phone, and video chatted, just like they said they would. Costia sent care packages. A picture of Costia joined the picture of her mother. She went to bed each night with both beside her pillow, so they’d be the first things she saw in the morning when she woke up. The guys in her unit playfully teased her about it, asking when she had turned into such a sap, but she just laughed. She was happy. 

The next time she came home on leave, Costia was there to greet her at the airport, jumping into her arms with a scream that had heads turning in their direction. She even had a welcome home sign.

Things couldn’t have been better for Lexa at that moment. When she brought Costia to meet Gustus and his family and Lexa watched Costia bend over to listen to Brook’s story about her best friend in Kindergarten, Lexa knew Costia was the one for her.

* * *  
Lexa woke with a start once again, dreams of her hand pressing against a bullet wound, blood gushing out in rivulets, as bullets flew over her head, and explosions went off, making her ears ring as she begged the man below her to stay with her, just stay with her for one more fucking second-

“Lexa!” A voice called out to her. 

It seemed to come from far away, the voice. It was insistent, relentless, calling her name until finally it couldn’t be denied any longer and Lexa was forced back into the present, greeted by a blonde haired girl kneeling in front of her.

“Costia?” She asked confusedly until her eyes found blue ones staring back at her, finally anchoring her in the present. “Clarke.” 

“I’m here. It’s ok.” She cooed. 

Lexa took several deep breaths. That had been a bad one. The worst one in a while. She could feel tears against her cheeks and turned away from Clarke, ashamed.

“Hey, it’s ok. You don’t need to hide from me. It’s ok to cry.” Clarke whispered, wanting to keep her voice low so as not to startle Lexa, who was clearly shaken.

Lexa met Clarke’s eyes hesitantly, the worry in them making her want to cry even more. She couldn’t remember the last time someone had stared at her like that; it left her breathless.

“What do you need from me, Lex? How do I help you?” All Clarke wanted to do was wrap her arms around the girl, and hold her until she felt better, but she wasn’t sure that would make her better. It might only freak her out even more. But Lexa looked so small, so vulnerable, and it made something in Clarke ache at the sight of it.

“I need to go outside,” Lexa said after she felt confident she could speak without her voice shaking.

“Outside?”

Lexa looked downcast. “As of late, when the nightmares are really bad, I go outside and… I take down walkers.”

Clarke nodded slowly.

“I know it sounds crazy. But sometimes when I’m slipping, it’s the only thing that makes me feel like I’m in control.”

Clarke nodded again, but more confidently this time. “That makes sense. I’ll go get my gun and my ax.”

“What?” 

“What?”

“You… want to come with me?”

“Do you not want me to?”

Lexa shook her head. “No. I mean yes. I mean. I mean I wouldn’t mind you coming with me.” 

Clarke smiled faintly.

“What?”

“Nothing. You’re just cute when you stammer.” 

They were silent for a moment as they stared at each other, and then Lexa’s lips quirked up in a half smile. 

“You took me by surprise, is all. I wouldn’t expect you to want to come with me on a walker killing expedition.”

Clarke shrugged. “I don’t want you going out alone, especially when you’re clearly shaken up. And I know that’s ridiculous, considering I’m hardly much in the way of protection but-”

“No.” Lexa cut in. “Don’t say that. Somebody having my back is the best protection I could ask for. And I wouldn’t want that somebody to be anybody but you.”

Clarke blushed, her heart feeling like it had skipped a beat or ten. “I don’t know about that. I think if it was between me and, say, a Navy Seal-”

Lexa made a scoffing noise. “You think I’d trust a squid to watch my back?”

Clarke tilted her head, confused, making Lexa smile.

“It’s just a joke between the Marines and the Navy. We’re jarheads, they’re squids. Which is pretty stupid when you remember the Marines are a part of the Navy.” 

Clarke smiled back. “I’ll go get ready and then we will go, ok?”

Lexa nodded, laying back in bed for a second once Clarke left her room. She was surprised at how quickly Clarke had been able to calm her down… and now she wouldn't have to go out fighting walkers alone. She would have someone beside her. She realized that that was how it was going to be from now on and the thought both scared her and excited her.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lexa and Clarke have a run in with some other survivors and Lexa opens up to Clarke.

Clarke wasn’t sure what she would find when she had woken up to Lexa yelling. Her initial thought was someone had found them while they were sleeping and was hurting her new friend and partner in crime. The thought had propelled her out of bed and across the hall and it was lucky for her that that wasn’t the case, because in her sleep ridden haste to rescue Lexa she had forgotten to bring either her ax or the gun that lay on the table beside her bed. The last thing she had expected to see was the sight of Lexa sitting up in bed, tears streaming down her face through her tightly closed eyelids, as her body shook. At that moment she hadn’t looked like the war-hardened badass she had come to know. She had been vulnerable, open. Clarke respected her all the more for it. 

Lexa had recovered quickly and she seemed much calmer now as they continued traveling up the road on foot, wordlessly taking down walkers that crossed their paths. Neither woman felt the need to fill the peaceful silence with unnecessary words; each derived comfort from the other just being there beside them. Clarke noticed early on the way Lexa kept sneaking glances at her as if she couldn’t entirely believe she was there and had to reassure herself of the fact over and over again. Clarke couldn’t help but smile when she found herself doing the same thing.

She wanted to ask Lexa about Gustus, whose name she had been yelling out before Clarke had come to her. She wanted to ask about Costia, the name Lexa had called out upon seeing Clarke. But she knew it would be an invasion of Lexa’s privacy and she wanted to respect the other woman’s space. 

Lexa was trying not to get lost in her thoughts, choosing to direct her attention towards the world around her instead. She took in all the trees, the grass, the line of cars extending all the way to the horizon, their deceased drivers often sitting limply in the front seat, or in many cases, pressing against the window as Lexa and Clarke passed, their mouths opening in a groan neither woman could hear through the car door. A chuckle brought her attention back to Clarke.

“What’s so funny, princess?”

Clarke shook her head, still smiling. “There was this girl in my Philosophy class last year. I swear any chance she got she would talk about Judgment Day, about God punishing us for our sins. I’m not religious and most people in the class would roll their eyes, and usually, the professor would have to politely cut her off to try to redirect her to the actual subject at hand. One of the things she talked a lot about though was the resurrection of the dead. We all dismissed her as being this wacky extremist and now it just hit me that she was more right than any of us. Are you religious?”

“No,” Lexa answered. “If God is real, he has a shitty sense of humor.”

Clarke snorted. “‘Man plans and God laughs.’”

Lexa smirked. “I wonder if this is what that girl in your Philosophy class was expecting if this is the Judgment Day her and the rest of the evangelists were waiting for.” 

“Well, that means we’re stuck in this hell because we are sinners under God’s eyes. And if the Bible-thumpers have it right, they’re having a glory old time up in heaven.”

“I know why I’d be condemned. But why would you be?”

“For one, I’m into women. Some would consider that a sin.” Clarke answered, meeting Lexa’s eyes.

Lexa smiled at Clarke, trying to ignore the happiness growing inside her at finding out Clarke wasn’t straight. She had already suspected she wasn’t, but hearing it confirmed was entirely different.  
“But I also haven’t lived my life honestly.”

Lexa tilted her head, which was quickly becoming Clarke’s favorite gesture of hers because it made her look like a puppy. 

“I mean I’m out as bisexual. I’ve always lived that part of my life honestly. But when it came to what I wanted to do with my life, I wasn’t being true to what I actually wanted.”

“And what’s that?”

“Anything, as long as it involved art. Working at a gallery, a museum, maybe even as an artist myself. It’s always been a passion of mine and it makes me feel connected to my dad. He’d always encouraged me.”

Lexa smiled softly. “Then why didn’t you pursue it?”

“My mom is a surgeon, a really good one, one of the best in the country. She’s always wanted me to follow in her footsteps. When my father died, it crushed her as much as it crushed me. She was so devastated and heartbroken and I knew it would make her happy to see me become a doctor. It felt like the least I could do. Honestly, it felt like the only thing I could do, like if I didn’t, I’d lose her too.”

“That’s a lot of pressure to have on you.”

Clarke nodded. “Yeah, I guess it is.” She let out a rueful laugh. “But I guess I don’t have to worry about that anymore. You’re right, Lex; if God is real he has a hell of a sense of humor. I mean I know I used to wish on the daily that there was some way I wouldn’t have to go to medical school and become a doctor but this is hardly what I meant.”

“But now I’d do it all in a heartbeat, become the goddamn chief of the surgery department if I could just see my mom and know that she’s ok.” Clarke sighed heavily. 

Before Lexa could respond, she saw a group of four men ahead of them, coming out of the tree line and she grabbed Clarke and pulled her behind a moving truck that was two cars ahead of them.

“Lexa, what is it?” Clarke whispered.

“Four men coming in from the treeline.” Lexa leaned around the side of the truck. “Fuck, they’re walking towards us and they’re armed.”

Clarke could hear the sound of men jeering and laughing and her stomach coiled. She knew right away that these were the kind of men one did not want to run into in an apocalyptic situation where people could do whatever the hell they wanted to without consequence.

“Can we hide in the back of the truck?” Clarke whispered but Lexa shook her head.

“If we try to open it, it’ll just alert them to our presence,” Lexa whispered. “Our best bet is to stand here quietly until they pass, circling around the truck so that it’s always between us and them.”

Clarke nodded.

“Just have your gun ready, Clarke. And be ready to shoot, if it comes to that.”

Clarke swallowed thickly, panic threatening to overcome her. 

Lexa sensed Clarke’s fear and she placed a comforting hand on her shoulder, rubbing soft circles into her skin with her thumb. “Clarke, it’s going to be ok. I know you can do this.”

Clarke was soothed by Lexa’s touch and by looking into those green eyes, which looked so sure, so confident, she wanted to believe her. Wanted to. “I’ve never killed anyone before.” She said quietly. 

Lexa nodded. “Sometimes it’s necessary to. Sometimes it’s unavoidable. And if those men find us, and they try to do something, I’m going to need you. Because in a situation like that, it’ll be us or them.”

Clarke nodded, drawing a deep breath into her lungs and back out.

Lexa and Clarke became silent once they heard the men approaching. They weren’t trying to be quiet whatsoever; why would they be? In their eyes, they had nothing to fear. Lexa knew that was a mindset they’d come to regret if they found her and Clarke and took it upon themselves to try anything. She could give them something to fear, and gladly. 

Clarke held her breath as the men passed them. Luckily for both girls they were too absorbed in their conversation to pay much attention to their surroundings (which Lexa rolled her eyes at; even when she was talking to Clarke she always made sure to be aware of the world around them, knowing all it would take to be killed was one quick lapse in attention) and they were able to quickly move around to the other side of the truck. When Lexa looked towards the direction the men had come from, her heart sank when she saw two walkers coming towards them.

“Clarke, we need to take them down as quietly as we can, ok?”  
Clarke nodded, her anxiety clear in her eyes as she held her ax more securely with the hand not holding her pistol.

Lexa stepped slightly forward, sinking the knife into the walker’s head all the way to the hilt and softly laying it down on the ground.

Clarke swung her ax into her walker’s head, her stomach dropping when she felt the blade get stuck before it could sink far enough in to properly damage the brain. Her desire to be stealthy had caused her to swing the ax with much less force than usual and now it was lodged in the walker’s head and all Clarke could do was hold it back as much as she could so it couldn’t bite at her. The walker was groaning loudly as he tried desperately to get close enough to Clarke and the force of his body pushed her back against the truck, making the metal reverberate loudly. Lexa plunged her knife into the walkers head and Clarke simply let the ax fall with it, noticing the way Lexa immediately held up her rifle and got into a fighting stance.

“I’m sorry,” Clarke whispered.

Lexa shook her head. “It wasn’t your fault. It just happened. But we can’t focus on that. Right now you need to get your gun ready because I know they heard that.”

Sure enough, the sound of the men’s conversation had stopped. One was asking the others what the fuck that had been, and while one seemed to shrug it off, saying it was probably just some dead fucker stuck in a car or something, he was quickly overruled by the other three.

Lexa tugged at Clarke’s arm, gesturing for her to follow her around to the front of the truck. 

“Clarke, I don’t trust these guys. They sound like trouble. I think the only chance we have of surviving is if we surprise them. Waiting for them to find us will only get us killed.”

Clarke didn’t like what Lexa was implying. The idea of shooting at four people, even if they didn’t sound trustworthy to her either, without any provocation made her feel uneasy. She wanted to limit the number of deaths she was responsible for if she could help it. But Lexa was right; they didn’t have much choice in a world like this. Sometimes it was kill or be killed.  
But damn it, Clarke didn’t want to add to that cycle; she wished there was a way to break it somehow.

“Clarke,” Lexa whispered roughly, bringing her back to the now. “We have about 30 seconds before they find us. Are you with me or not?”

Clarke nodded. “I’m with you.” 

Lexa nodded back, looking relieved. Before Lexa could even lean around the truck to train her sights on one of the men, the sound of one of them calling out to the others, stopped her.  
“Hey! Look at this, fellows! We’ve got something walking towards us, and it doesn’t look dead.”

“What the fuck are you talking about, Gary?”

“There! She’s running towards us from where we just came from! Looks like some walkers are on her trail.”

When Lexa turned around she indeed watched as a woman ran from the treeline, five walkers following closely behind. She was unarmed, her clothes torn, and she was waving her hands frantically, screaming for help. 

“Lexa,” Clarke whispered worriedly but Lexa put her finger to her lips, willing her with a stern look to stay quiet and stay where she is. The men didn’t know where they were and right now they were distracted by the arrival of a new person and Lexa wanted to keep it that way, see how things played out a little before choosing the best course of action. Lexa grabbed Clarke and led her back around to the side of the truck just as the men came up on the other side to get closer to the running girl. 

Lexa watched from her vantage point as the girl approached and immediately threw herself into one of the guy’s arms.

“Woah, there.” He said. Lexa noticed the way his hands slid down her back, resting just above the place where her back curved into her ass and her eyes narrowed before her attention was drawn back to the other three guys who swiftly took care of the walkers. 

When they finished they walked to their friend, who was listening to the girl explain how her camp had been overrun, the walkers had killed her husband and the two others they had been staying with, and she had run away, not knowing what else to do. 

The looks the guys kept exchanging with each other made Lexa antsy.

“Clarke, I think these guys are going to take advantage of this girl,” Lexa whispered.

Clarke’s eyes widened. “What do we do?”

“We stop them,” Lexa said simply.

Clarke swallowed, her mouth feeling dry. “Ok.”

“Come here,” Lexa whispered, switching positions with Clarke. 

“Ok, do you see the two guys to the left? I need you to aim for at least one of them if you can. Do you think you can do that?”

Clarke could see how the men had arranged themselves in a circle of sorts, two men in front of the girl, one man to the left of her, and the other holding on to her. It was disconcerting to see how they had her boxed in and Clarke could see by the way the girl was nervously looking around that she was probably thinking about how she had escaped from five monsters only to fall into the hands of four others. 

“Thank you for saving me. I think I better go back to my camp, now… Bury my husband.” The girl said quietly and started to leave, but the man holding her pulled her back.

“You think you can just leave without paying us back for what we did?”

The girl stopped in her tracks. “If I go to the camp, I can bring back some food-”

“We don’t want your food.” The man holding her cut in harshly and Clarke watched as the rest of the men starting closing in.

Clarke looked back at Lexa. “Yes. I can do that.” She wasn’t entirely sure, but she knew she had to try. She couldn’t let these men get away with what they were planning on doing to this woman. 

Lexa nodded and quickly ran to duck behind the car in front of the truck. The men were too distracted to see her. Lexa gave one more nod to Clarke before positioning her gun against her shoulder and firing.

The bullets hit the man closest to her and he fell down with a scream as he clutched at his chest. The other men were quick to react, pushing the woman aside roughly to grab their guns. Lexa aimed at the one who had been holding the woman, shooting him right in the crotch, unable to resist the smirk that crossed her face as he cried out in agony and clutched at his crotch, blood soaking through the denim and onto his fingers before he fell over in a heap. The other men had their guns in hand by now and were raining fire down on the car, making it impossible for Lexa to return fire. 

Clarke took a deep breath, peeking around the side of the truck and aiming at the man to the left. Her first shot missed, not doing much more than alerting the two men to her attention and she ducked back behind the truck, her heart beating wildly. 

It gave Lexa the opportunity to shoot the guy to the right, her shot hitting him square in the face and he fell over on top of the man she had shot in the balls, who had passed out from the pain. 

The remaining guy stopped firing and dropped his gun, holding up his hands in surrender.

“Ok, whoever you are, you win. My hands are up and I’m no longer armed. Please don’t shoot me.”

Lexa peeked over the top of the car slowly and when she saw he was telling the truth, stood up all the way, still training her gun on him. 

“You were going to rape that woman.” She stated. 

The guy’s eyes widened in fear. “No, I would never. That was all the other guys; they’re crazy. I’m glad you shot them.”

Lexa smiled. “Do you think I’m that fucking stupid I’d buy that act?”

“It’s not an act, I swear I-” A bullet to his knee-cap pulled a scream out of him that drowned out whatever he was going to say and he collapsed onto the floor. 

Lexa stepped forward so she was standing over him. “My friend and I were just having a conversation about God and being condemned for your sins. Do you believe in God?”

The man nodded eagerly. 

“What, you think the fact that you believe in God means I’m going to show you mercy? No. I only ask because pretty soon you’ll find out if your God is real or not. And if he is, you’re going to have to answer for everything you’ve done.”

“So will you.” The man said through his teeth as he attempted to bite back the pain.

Lexa smirked. “I don’t live my life for some deity. I live my life for me. And right now, your God isn’t here to cleanse you of your sins. And I don’t show mercy to scumbags like you.” 

Lexa let her rifle hang by its strap and took her pistol out of her holster.

“Fuck you.” He said between gasps of breath.

“For once, it looks like you’re the one who’s about to get fucked,” Lexa replied before her gun went off and a bullet through his head made it impossible for him to formulate his own retort.

She holstered her gun and walked back to the truck. Clarke was leaning against the side, taking deep breaths as tears fell from her eyes.

“Hey, you did good. I didn’t even expect you to try. I know how hard it is the first time. I’m impressed.” Lexa said and Clarke nodded, still keeping her eyes closed. Lexa sighed as she walked over and stood next to Clarke.

“Do you think I’m a monster? For shooting that guy even though he surrendered?” 

Clarke shook her head. 

“If I had let him live, he would have done it again. He would have found some other woman to violate.”

“I know,” Clarke whispered.

“Maybe I shouldn’t have goaded him like that but he just pissed me off, trying to play the good guy.” 

Clarke nodded, unable to form a sentence at the moment. Lexa looked ahead, unsure of what was going through Clarke’s mind, and what she wanted of her.

When Clarke pushed herself off the truck and stood up straight, Lexa did as well, looking at her concernedly. Clarke stepped forward, practically collapsing into Lexa’s arms, who stepped back in order to prevent herself from sprawling onto the pavement. She put her arms around Clarke, who buried her face in her shoulder and clutched onto her tightly. Lexa felt the tension in her own body dissipate as she held Clarke’s body against her own, burying her face in her golden hair, and enjoying the feeling of her chest pressing into her's with every breath she took. 

After a moment, Clarke pulled away, looking shy.

“I’m sorry. I just-I was scared and I needed- I should have asked. I’m sorry.” She looked down, unable to meet Lexa’s eyes.

“I didn’t mind. Maybe I needed the comfort too.” Lexa assured with a small smile and Clarke finally looked up at her again, those blue eyes meeting hers with a warmth that made Lexa’s heart flutter. 

“C’mon, we should go see if that woman is still here. Make sure she’s ok.” Lexa said and Clarke nodded.

But she was gone, probably having run away as soon as the bullets started flying. Lexa didn’t blame her. 

“Well, that’s that I guess. Shall we keep going?”  
Clarke shrugged. “That’s all we can do.”

Lexa and Clarke kept walking for another half hour before deciding to take a break to eat lunch.

They sat side by side in the bed of a pickup truck, sipping at their cans of soup and the bottles of water they had gotten at Target. Lexa could tell Clarke wasn’t in a good mood and she went over various ways she could cheer her up. Before she could settle on one, Clarke spoke up.

“I can’t believe I shot at someone today. And I know he deserved it but… Still. It’s not what I thought I’d be doing. One second I’m studying how to save lives, and the next I’m trying to take one.”

Lexa nodded. 

“I mean I missed, so it’s not like it even matters but I know it won’t be the last time I’ll have to do it. And next time I might not be able to afford to miss. It’s quickly dawning on me how hard it will be for me, for any of us, to hold onto our humanity in this world. I mean, look at those guys. They were having the time of their lives because they finally had the opportunity to act like complete shits with zero repercussions. How many others are there like that? People who have been playing the role of law-abiding citizens, when inside they were just waiting for a chance to act on their violent urges. Well, here is their chance.”

“I highly doubt those men abided by the laws, even when there were any.” Lexa pointed out. 

“Probably not. But you get what I mean.”

Lexa nodded. “Trust me, I get it more than anyone. I didn’t need the apocalypse to know that in war people show their true colors. Anyone can become a monster.”

“You didn’t,” Clarke said.

Lexa shrugged. “You hardly know me. Half an hour ago you watched me execute someone without blinking an eye.”

“A man who was going to hurt someone else.”

Lexa shrugged again. “Everyone thinks they’re the good guys. But you spend enough time fighting, you start to realize there are no good guys, not even the people fighting beside you.”

“What about Gustus?”

Lexa’s jaw tensed. 

“From what you’ve told me, you think he’s a good guy.”

“He was.” Lexa agreed sternly.

There was a moment of silence, in which Clarke watched Lexa, watched the way she swallowed and let air out through her nose as she stared up at the sky like she was preparing herself for something. When she finally looked back at Clarke, her eyes steeled against whatever she planned to say next. 

When she did speak, it was clear to Clarke that Lexa wasn’t entirely with her, that part of her was still stuck in the rockface of a certain ridge in the Southern part of Afghanistan… 

* * *  
The mission had gone downhill from the get-go: a group of militia had been waiting to ambush her unit as soon as they reached the ridge; the rendezvous point with the Delta team was just over the other side, but they had no hope of reaching it. Lexa lay down covering fire, allowing her unit to find cover in the mess of boulders that littered the slope of the ridge. The militia trying to gun them down were at the top, giving them the vantage point and making a retreat impossible. The only thing they could do was hold their ground and hope the Delta team could make the rendezvous on their side and hit the militia from behind. Jaha was yelling orders at the unit. 

“Woods! Lakis!” Jaha bellowed. 

Lexa made her way quickly but carefully to her CO, reaching him just as Gustus did.

“We’re going to lay on some covering fire. I want you two to circle around on their left, as Evens and Mason circle around on their right. Once you’re both in position, take them out.”

“Sir, what about the Delta team?” Gustus asked.

Jaha narrowed his eyes. “Are you questioning my authority, Sergeant?”

“No, Sir.”

“Good. I don’t have any plans to die on this rock face, which we will if we’re counting on Delta Team to save our asses. We’re Marines; we save ourselves.” 

“Yes, Sir.”

“Now, go!”

“Oorah!” Gustus exclaimed to Lexa as they started slipping away. 

“Oorah,” Lexa repeated. 

Soon, the gunfire was getting fainter and fainter as they put it to their backs, waiting until they were at a safe distance away before cutting to the right. They were glad the darkness could mask their advance, but they went slowly and carefully regardless, keeping their eye out for any stray enemies.

“I don’t need to be a goddamn Lieutenant to know this mission was going to be messy,” Gustus muttered as they took cover behind a large boulder.

“SNAFU,” Lexa replied.

“Fuckin’ a,” Gustus grunted as he went around the boulder to continue the advance. As Lexa went around, a chunk of rock was blown away right above her head and she spotted three shooters ahead of them on the ridge. She aimed her rifle, shooting one of them down, before noticing Gustus lying on the ground. She screamed his name, grabbing him by his camo bulletproof vest and dragging him back around the boulder, Gustus pushing at the ground with his feet to help her. She ducked back around the rock, shooting down one more guy and watching as the last one was shot from behind. She could hear more gunfire coming from the left and watched as the militia holding down the rest of her guys started to fall. The Delta Team had come after all. 

She dropped to her knees in front of Gustus, ripping off his vest.

“The fuckers got me.” Gustus wheezed, holding his side, blood pouring through his fingers.

“It’s just a flesh wound, Lakis.” Lexa snapped as she pulled his hands away, replacing them with her own. She applied as much pressure as she could, ignoring the way his blood poured over her hands, coating them in red. He groaned at the pain and she could see blood coming out of his mouth and his eyes go droopy. 

“Hey! Gustus! Stay with me! Stay the fuck with me! Don’t fall asleep on me, now, ok? Not when the cavalry has just arrived.” She craned her head to look towards where her unit was. “Medic! We need a Medic over here!” She yelled as loud as she could and cursed when she realized they were too far away to be heard. 

“Fucking Jaha,” Gustus muttered. 

“Fucking Jaha is right. You’ll give him the tongue lashing of a lifetime, won’t you, Gus?”

Gustus smiled weakly. “You’d have to kill him in order for me to do that.”

“Gus-”

He raised a shaky hand, reaching into his shirt and pulling out a folded piece of paper, his hands leaving a bloody print on it. “Can you do something for me?”

“Gustus-”

“Make sure this gets to Amelia for me, yeah? But make sure you tell her not to let Brook and Lily read it until they’re older, you hear?” He asked, his voice stronger, a single tear falling from his eyes. 

Lexa felt her own tears streaming down her face. “No, Gustus, you’ll give it to her yourself, when you’re honorably discharged and given the Purple Heart for fighting bravely.”

Gustus gave Lexa another weak smile. “I might get the Purple Heart, Lexa, but if I do, it’ll be posthumously.”

“Gustus-”

“Lexa, my fight is over. But yours is not. Be strong. And don’t let Costia go. Amelia was the best thing to ever happen to me. She saved me.” He coughed, more blood spilling out.

The blood wasn’t letting up, no matter how hard she pressed down. 

“Gustus, stay with me.” Lexa turned back towards the unit. “Medic!”

“Lexa, take the letter. Get it to my wife.” Gustus pressed it towards her but it wasn’t until Lexa met his eyes, saw the pleading in them, that she finally grabbed it, tucking it in her own shirt.

“Gustus.” It seemed to be all she could say as the tears streamed out of her eyes.

“You know the prayer I said to Quince when he died? The one he told me to read?” Gustus asked and Lexa nodded. “That would be a nice message to leave on, don’t you think? Do you think you could say it for me?”

The tears spilled harder than ever and Lexa had to take a moment to try and recall the words, but mostly to get her emotions in check so she could say them without butchering them.

“In peace, may you leave the shore. In love, may you find the next. Safe passage on your travels until our final journey to the ground. May we meet again.” Lexa said softly and a small smile graced Gustus’ face as his breathing slowed.

“May we meet again.” He whispered, almost hopefully, and then his eyes went still.

Lexa fell backward as the strength left her body. She had lost people in battles before and it had been awful, but it hadn’t been like this. She hadn’t felt so hollow. 

She barely heard the trio of soldiers who ran up to them, checking Gustus’ pulse, collecting his dog tag and then turning to help Lexa up. Lexa walked with them, even bent over to collect her gun as the three soldiers hoisted Gustus up and carried him back toward the rest of the unit. She did these things, and she did a whole bunch of other things after that, but she felt none of it. 

 

* * *

Lexa managed to recount Gustus’ death without crying, which was a huge relief to her. Clarke listened to her story intently, nodding along at parts, her eyes filled with sympathy. 

“Fucking Jaha,” Lexa muttered, echoing Gustus’ words. “If he could have just waited for Delta Team-” She stopped. 

“I’m so sorry, Lex. I can’t even begin to imagine what it must have been like for you to experience that.”

Lexa nodded. “You’re the only one I’ve ever told. About any of it.” 

“I’m glad you trusted me enough to tell me. I’m here if you want to talk more about it. Or anything.”

Lexa nodded again. “We should get going. We’ve been sitting here long enough.” 

Clarke jumped off the truck bed and walked alongside Lexa. They only walked a couple feet before Lexa stopped again with a groan.

“What’s wrong?”

“I’m sick of walking down this stretch of road.” Lexa snapped angrily as she kicked the side of a nearby car. 

Clarke raised her eyebrows, having not seen Lexa act out like that before. She supposed it was the stress of talking about something she had kept buried in her for so long.

“C’mon,” Clarke said, grabbing her hand softly. “Follow me.”

Clarke tugged at the arm but Lexa just pulled her back, narrowing her eyes suspiciously. 

“Where are we going?”

“Anywhere that isn’t here. Just trust me.” Clarke looked at Lexa and could see her evaluating whether to let Clarke lead her blindly before giving into the hand pulling her forward. They didn’t let go of each other’s hands until they reached the treeline. They didn’t talk until ten minutes into their walk through the forest when it became clear to Lexa that Clarke had no real destination in mind.

“Clarke, what are we doing walking through the woods like a bunch of idiots?” Lexa was getting annoyed now, not in the mood for any antics, especially if those antics included walking mindlessly through woods rife with walkers. As if to prove her point, two walkers came at them from the left, and Clarke stepped forward, slicing the ax (which she had finally dislodged from the last walker’s head after the men had been dealt with) through the air and cutting the first walker’s face neatly in half before impaling the ax into the second one’s head. Lexa couldn’t hold back her smirk.

“You’ve gotten pretty handy with that ax.” Lexa mused.

“Yeah, well, I’m in no mood to be fucked with right now. We’ve had a shit day and we deserve a break.” Clarke said roughly as she kept walking. 

Lexa, despite having served in the Marines on three tours through Afghanistan, felt a little afraid at the intensity of Clarke’s tone and knew it would be wise not to question her further on exactly what they were doing right now. She didn’t need to; Clarke told her ten minutes later. Lexa had decided to just relax and enjoy the nature around her: the canopy of leaves above her, the clump of flowers growing at the base of some of the trees. Birds flew overhead, chirping lively. Not even the multiple walkers they ran into could take away from Lexa’s brightening mood. It was nice to know, that even with all this death, life could still flourish. It was the most hopeful thought Lexa had had in a long time. She had walked through woods like this multiple times in the last month, but this was the first time she really took the time to appreciate the nature around her. She knew she had Clarke to thank for that, at least partially. But it didn’t appear the blonde, usually the more optimistic of the two, was sharing Lexa’s good feeling because she stopped walking with a groan.

“We’ve been walking for half an hour and still nothing.” She whined.

“Maybe if you tell me what we’re looking for I can help you,” Lexa suggested with a wry smile.

“Why are you so chipper?”

“Why are you so angry?”

“Is this some freaky Friday shit going on? Because half an hour ago you were kicking cars and I was perfectly fine, and now I’m the one who’s pissed off and you’re looking like you just inhaled laughing gas or something.”

“I kicked one car. And I do not look like I inhaled laughing gas.” Lexa corrected. “But you’re right; I am feeling a little better than before. This walk through the woods was a nice distraction.”

“To be fair, you not angrily brooding and being all gung-ho about survival is your version of inhaling laughing gas.” Clarke retorted and Lexa chuckled. “What the fuck? You’re supposed to say something witty and sardonic not just laugh. I think this is throwing me off more than the walkers.”

“I thought you wanted me to be less negative. You’re hard to please, princess.” Lexa said with a smile.

“Ah, and she’s back.” Clarke teased, feigning a sigh of relief. “And since when are you trying to please me?” 

“I thought we went over this back at Target. As the Commander, I pledged fealty to you, remember, princess?”

Clarke raised her eyebrows. “How was I to take that seriously? I don’t remember you making a pledge for anything.”

And because Lexa was feeling playful, she reached into her bag and grabbed a can of beef stew and a Snickers bar before going down on her knees, staring up at Clarke with an earnest expression on her face.

Clarke looked down, shocked by Lexa’s action. She had expected Lexa to just say some goofy pledge as a joke; the last thing she had expected was for Lexa to get down on her knees and look up at her with such an open, unguarded look in her eyes that Clarke was left speechless. She knew it was just a joke, a silly side of Lexa that she hadn’t seen yet (and already liked), but that didn’t stop a warmth from budding in her chest… and maybe a bit farther down as well. It didn’t help matters any when Lexa grabbed her hand and placed the soup and the candy bar in her palm.

“I pledge fealty to you, Princess, and promise to treat your needs as my own and to protect you like I would protect myself. As a token of my newly sworn loyalty, please accept a can of beef stew and a Snickers, my most prized possessions.” Lexa said, getting up from her position, waiting for Clarke to continue teasing her. 

It took a few seconds for Clarke to get her wits back. When she did, she looked up from the items in her hand, looking at Lexa with faint surprise. “Wow, you must be serious about that pledge if you’d give me one of your Snickers.”

Lexa snorted. “Please, if you think I’d actually give up one of my Snickers, you are sorely mistaken.” She snagged the candy back from Clarke.

Clarke’s mouth dropped open. “Give that back! If you don’t give it back, then that pledge meant nothing!”

“I’m still gifting you beef stew. Jeez, princesses are greedy.”

“Commanders are heartless cheapskates.” 

“How else do you think I became Commander?”

Clarke rolled her eyes. “Yeah, well, the role clearly suits you.” 

“Do you even like Snickers?”

Clarke glared at Lexa. “No.”

That drew a laugh from Lexa, which got Clarke laughing. It would be hard for Clarke not to.

“C’mon, Clarke,” Lexa said once they settled down. “Tell me what we’re doing in the middle of the forest.”

“Well, truthfully, I don’t really know. I was kind of just hoping we’d walk and maybe come across something interesting, something that might bring you out of your angry mood, like a river we could swim in, or a hill we could climb up, I don’t know. Then I got frustrated because there’s nothing. My plan sucked.”

Lexa smiled. “Well, you might not have had much in the way of a plan, to begin with, but it worked anyway. I feel better. I actually feel better.” It was surprising for Lexa to admit that was the truth. The feeling felt so alien to her.

“We haven’t even done anything,” Clarke said softly. 

“That’s not true; we walked through this beautiful patch of woods that’s hard not to admire and you.”

“What about me?” 

Lexa shrugged. “Just you.”

A smile spread across Clarke’s face, practically from ear to ear, and Lexa wholeheartedly smiled back. 

A walker interrupted the moment, making Clarke jump with a startled gasp. 

Lexa unsheathed her knife and dealt with it swiftly. 

“Lexa! Behind you!” Clarke yelled and Lexa turned around just as another walker grabbed onto her shoulder and brought her to the ground. Lexa held the walker back with both arms, struggling against the weight of it as it fought to bite into her skin.

Clarke was sidelined by three other walkers who had come out of the woodwork behind the first two. She swung the ax quickly through the first one’s neck, the blade stopping three-quarters of the way through when the walker collapsed at her feet and she plunged the ax into the next one.

Lexa was still holding back the walker when another walker came up and fell on top of both of them, pushing the first one closer towards her and she groaned at the effort of holding them both back. The sound of a gun firing made her jump and the walker fell limply on top of her. Before the second walker could do much more than reach towards Lexa over the limp body between them, a second shot fired and Lexa watched the bullet rip a hole through the walker’s head before the weight of two dead bodies knocked the breath out of her. 

Clarke ran over, pulling the bodies off Lexa and helping her up just as more walkers came stumbling through the foliage.

Clarke didn’t think; she just grabbed Lexa’s hand and ran, nearly causing Lexa to fall over before she was able to catch her balance and match Clarke’s speed. 

Lexa didn’t know how long they ran like that, but they didn’t stop until Clarke hunched over, clutching her side.

“Jesus.” Clarke wheezed. 

“I think we lost them,” Lexa said, looking around. “Lucky for us, they’re not very fast.”

Clarke stood up and pulled Lexa into a hug, surprising the other girl to the point where Lexa didn’t return the gesture until a few seconds had passed. 

“You almost died,” Clarke whispered, her breath against her neck sending shivers down Lexa's body.

Lexa smiled. “It’d take a lot more than that to kill me. Especially when I have Annie Oakley on my side.” Lexa pulled away to look at Clarke. “That was some nice shooting, princess. Where’d you learn that from?”

Clarke rolled her eyes, playfully pushing Lexa’s shoulder.

“I’m serious; whoever taught you must be ridiculously talented.”

“Oh, yeah, and very modest to boot.” Clarke countered.

Lexa smirked. “All joking aside, I’m thoroughly impressed.” 

Clarke beamed.

“I’m also thankful you didn’t blow my brains out in the process.” Lexa teased. “It was a pretty risky shot for a novice.”

“You can’t let me have one thing, can you?” Clarke mused with a roll of her eyes. Lexa was barely paying attention to Clarke; she had finally taken the moment to look over Clarke’s shoulder and the scene waiting behind the blonde made any thoughts of teasing Clarke disappear from her mind. 

“Clarke-” 

“You don’t hear me ribbing you after you save my life.”

“Clarke.”

“And it was an impressive shot. Especially for a novice.”

Lexa grabbed Clarke by her shoulders and turned her briskly around, stopping her mid-sentence.

“Woah.” 

When they had mindlessly run from the walkers, they had come across what looked to the two survivors as a paradise. Through the thin foliage bordering the large clearing on the other side, Clarke and Lexa took in the sight of a waterfall spilling down over a rocky cliff and into a wide pool of water bordered by slabs of stone. The ground below them gradually became more gravelly as they got closer to the water, drawn forward by the beauty of the scene before them. 

Clarke and Lexa’s eyes met, both girls sporting an excited grin. 

“Looks like your plan didn’t suck after all,” Lexa commented.

“Guess not. It only took us being attacked by a mob of walkers to figure it out.”

When Clarke turned to look back at Lexa after glancing around what seemed like an entirely different world than the one she had gotten to know over the last few days, she was surprised to watch the brunette grab the hem of her shirt and pull it swiftly over her head, exposing abdominal muscles that Clarke could drool over for days and a black sports bra that covered much too much of Lexa’s chest for Clarke’s liking.

“See something you like?” Lexa asked with a cocked eyebrow and Clarke quickly turned away, blushing. 

Lexa smirked as she removed her pants and waded into the water, which was nice and cool against her skin.

“Coming in?” Lexa called out to Clarke who was still standing fully dressed by the edge of the water.

Clarke shook her head as if to clear it and it was Lexa’s turn to gawk as Clarke took off her shirt, revealing a curvier but just as sexy stomach and a sports bra that provided Lexa an ample view of cleavage.

Clarke wanted to say something snarky about Lexa’s gaping to make up for Lexa’s comment but truth be told, she liked the way Lexa was looking at her too much to say anything about it. So she stripped off her pants, revealing black bikini style underwear, before wading into the water after Lexa, who was treading water near the center of the pool. 

“This feels so good,” Clarke commented when she got close.

“I know.” 

Lexa had a content smile on her face as she held her head up to the sun beating down on them, eyes closed in an expression of pure bliss. 

Clarke took a second to enjoy the sensation of the warm sun juxtaposed against the cool water before splashing Lexa, startling her from her moment of peace.

“Did you just splash me?” Lexa asked, a teasing warning in her voice.

Clarke started angling away from Lexa, an innocent smile on her face. “Why, I would never.”

“Really? So the water just flung into my face of its own accord, huh?” Lexa asked, slowly treading closer as Clarke tried to put distance between them.

“It must have; it’s the only reasonable explanation.” 

“Hmm.” Lexa hummed in false agreement. “Yeah, I guess whatever force created walkers also made water sentient.”

“I guess so. Should we be worried? The planet is 70% water, after all.”

The girls slowly circled one another, waiting for the other to make a move. Finally, with a gleeful shriek, Clarke splashed Lexa and then took off swimming across the pool, Lexa in hot pursuit. 

It didn’t take Lexa long to catch Clarke and the girls started to wrestle, each one trying to dunk the other’s head under the water, laughing and shrieking merrily before Lexa’s superior strength won out and Clarke was submerged. Lexa pushed off of her, swimming a few feet away from where she had dunked Clarke. They were closer to the waterfall, meaning the current was stronger and Lexa began to get worried when Clarke’s head didn’t resurface. She called out her name, swimming up to the spot where she had dunked her, dipping her head under the water with her eyes open, trying desperately to see any sign of the girl. Suddenly hands clutched at her side, making her scream and whip around quickly to find Clarke laughing hysterically. 

“Clarke!” Lexa scolded.

“I can’t believe I actually managed to scare you. I thought that would be impossible.” Clarke said through fits of laughter. Lexa looked at her sternly.

“You do not sneak up on someone during the apocalypse, Clarke.” 

“I’m sorry; I must have missed that in the handbook,” Clarke replied.

“I thought you had drowned, Clarke.” 

Clarke frowned. “I’m sorry, Lex. I didn’t mean to worry you.”

“It’s ok, Clarke. I know you were just playing around. I suppose it what I deserve after taunting you with that Snickers bar.”

They spent the next half hour swimming around before deciding to get out and dry off by the side of the water. 

Some walkers wandered through the woods towards them while they were getting out and Clarke and Lexa faced them together, taking them down swiftly and neatly. Clarke couldn’t help but admire the way Lexa’s body moved as she fought, the way her biceps flexed and her stomach muscles clenched. The way her shoulder blades rippled under her toned back and, the tendons in her neck standing out. She could watch Lexa take down walkers in her bra and underwear all day if she could. Although, there were probably better things they could do with their time than that. 

Finally, the girls lay next to each other in the sun, sprawled out on the flat stones by the water. The stone was warm against their bare skin from sitting in the sun all day. 

“This was nice,” Clarke said with a contented sigh.

Lexa hummed in agreement. It was the most fun she had had in awhile. 

“Can I ask you something, Lex?” Clarke asked quietly.

Lexa opened her eyes and turned her head to the side to look at Clarke. “What is it, Clarke?”

“Who’s Costia?”

Lexa closed her eyes briefly before opening them again, turning her head to look back up at the sky. She recalled mistakenly calling Clarke Costia in her confusion this morning and decided it was a fair question for the blonde to ask. 

“She’s my ex-girlfriend. We were together for two years.”

Clarke nodded. She didn’t feel the need to press further, not wanting to spoil the mood.

“I was going to quit the Marines for her. Not just for her. After Gustus died, it changed for me. Became a source of pain instead of a source of strength. Each death after that seemed to rock me even more. Fighting in the war started to seem so pointless. What were we even doing? I was trained to kill people and I couldn’t really figure out why. We say it’s because of terrorists but the people who train them call us the same thing. Who’s to say who’s right and who’s wrong? Maybe we’re all wrong.” 

“Did you?”

“Did I what?”

“Did you quit?”

“No.” Lexa paused. “Things would have been better if I had.”

“Is that why you broke up? Because you didn’t quit?”

Lexa shook her head. “No. I wasn’t convinced about re-upping for another tour because of Gustus and how empty being in the Marines had become for me. I thought maybe I had put all I could into it. Not everyone is meant to be a lifer like some people are. I mean, I definitely did not join with the intention of becoming General or something like that. Costia was what decided me for sure about re-upping and then…”

 

* * *

Lexa tapped her foot restlessly as the plane slowly taxied to an open gate. She was anxious to get off the plane so she could take a cab to Costia’s and surprise her, both with her early and unexpected homecoming and with the news that after finishing up the remaining two months of her current tour, she’d be coming home for good. This trip wasn’t going to be all happiness and joy, however. She was also going to be paying a visit to Gustus’ family to deliver his letter. She just couldn’t stand to mail it; thought it was something that deserved to be handed over in person. And maybe Amelia, Lily, and Brook would appreciate a visit from someone who had known Gustus closely, who had served alongside him up to the moment of his death. But she didn’t want to think about that right now, couldn’t let her grief swallow her up yet. First, she had some good news to share, then she could let herself feel the pain of her friend’s death, hopefully in the comforts of her girlfriend’s arms. 

Finally, the plane landed, and she was able to get off. Not checking baggage saved her the time of having to wait at baggage claim; instead, she went straight to the line of taxis waiting outside and hopped into an empty one. She let thoughts of the future occupy her mind as the driver headed to Costia’s apartment in downtown Polis. Thoughts of getting her GED so she could go to college and get a civilian job. Thoughts of marrying Costia, buying a house together, and maybe even having a kid of their own. She knew if they had a boy, she’d want to name him Gustus. If they had a girl, she’d want to name her Alice, after her mother. But Costia would surely have her own list of names; Lexa smiled faintly as she thought of playful arguments over what to call their unborn child. She knew she was getting ahead of herself but she thought she deserved a little bit of fantasy after dealing with such a harsh reality. And it wasn’t that far-fetched, was it? They had been together for two years (even if most of that time was spent apart, but that only served as a testament to how committed they were to each other, right?). 

Standing outside Costia’s building 45 minutes later, Lexa placed her uniform cap firmly on her head, knowing Costia loved seeing her in full uniform. Before she could even ring the intercom for Costia’s apartment, one of her neighbors opened the door on his way out. 

“You going in?” He asked.

Lexa nodded. “Yeah, I’m here to surprise my girlfriend. I just got back Stateside.”

The man smiled. “I’m glad you made it home safe. I’m sure she’ll be happy to see you.”

He held the door open for her and she gave him a warm smile in thanks. 

She took the steps two at a time, grinning like an idiot by the time she stood in front of Costia’s door. She had to knock a few times before Costia came to the door, her face widening in shock at the sight of Lexa standing in her doorway. Before anything could be said, Lexa swept her girlfriend in her arms, picking her up and spinning her around a little before putting her back down and burying her head in her neck, inhaling her sweet scent.

“You have no idea how good it is to see you,” Lexa whispered against her skin before pulling away to take in the sight of her beautiful girlfriend. 

“Lexa….” Costia trailed off, stunned speechless. “What are you doing here? You’re not due home for another two months.”

“I know,” Lexa said with an eager smile as she walked into Costia’s apartment. “I wanted to surprise you.”

“Consider me surprised,” Costia said. Lexa didn’t notice the way her girlfriend’s eyes kept glancing at her closed bedroom door, she was too busy caught up in her own excitement.

“And that’s not all.” Lexa went on. “I’m not re-upping.”

Costia looked back at her girlfriend, rendered speechless for the second time in a minute.

“What?”

“This is my last tour. After these two months, I’m done. I’m coming home, baby.” 

Costia didn’t say anything and they stood there in silence for a beat, Lexa watching her girlfriend expectantly, Costia looking almost guilty.

“Lexa, I know how important being in the Marines is for you. Are you quitting only for me?”

Lexa shook her head, her eyebrows furrowing. This was not the reaction she had been expecting but she supposed it was a fair enough question. It was sweet that Costia was thinking of her. 

“No, not just you, Costia. It was a lot of things, actually.”

“Like what?” Costia asked, sensing the way Lexa’s mood dropped.

Lexa sighed. “Well, I didn’t want to tell you like this. I wanted to wait until after we had properly celebrated my decision to finish my service but… Gustus died.”

Costia’s face fell, tears filling up her eyes. “Oh, Lexa, I’m so-”

But before Costia could say anything further, her bedroom door opened and a woman with just a blanket wrapped around her leaned against the doorframe. 

“Cos, what is taking you so long?” Then, once she seemed to notice Lexa standing there, “Oh, shit. Is this the soldier girlfriend you told me about?”

Lexa gaped at the girl standing in her girlfriend’s bedroom, naked except for the blanket covering her, before turning to look at her girlfriend, eyes burning with anger.

“Costia,” Lexa said slowly. “What is going on here?”

The other girl, meanwhile, slipped back into the bedroom, closing the door.

“Costia. What the fuck is going on here?” Lexa repeated more frantically.

Costia blew air out of her mouth. “I wish I had a different answer for you Lexa, but exactly what it looks like is going on here.”

Lexa buried her face in her hands, trying to keep her composure, trying to bite back the tears that wanted to spill down her face. “How long?” When no answer greeted her, she repeated in a louder voice, “How long have you been cheating on me?”

The bedroom door opened right then and the girl fully dressed now, stopped in her tracks before speed walking to the front door and leaving without another word. Lexa removed her face from her hands and looked at her girlfriend with weary eyes. 

Costia looked down at Lexa’s feet.

“Look me in the eyes, Costia, and tell me how long you’ve been betraying me.”

“A year.” A small voice answered and Lexa bent over, fists clenched at her side, before standing upright again and taking a step closer to Costia.

“A year?”

Costia nodded.

“Why?”

“Why? Why do you think, Lexa? You’re never here!”

“You told me you could wait for me!”

“I thought I could and then I couldn’t, Lexa! Does that make me a bad person?”

“No, what makes you a bad person was instead of being honest with me and telling me that, you went behind my back and fucked around with someone else for a whole goddamn year while I was in some fucking desert being shot at and watching my friend die right in front of my eyes!” She was yelling now, the pain, the hurt, the anger, all coursing through her like some dangerous riptide. 

“I’m so sorry, Lexa, I’m so sorry.”

“You’re sorry? Costia, sorry is what you are when you bump into someone in the supermarket, not when you’ve been cheating on your girlfriend for a year! A year, Costia!”

Costia said nothing.

“God, I’m such a fucking idiot. I’m so fucking stupid for ever believing this could end up with us being happy. Why couldn’t you just tell me you couldn’t do it anymore? It would have been so much easier if you had just told me.”

“What was I supposed to say, Lexa? You go off to fight in a war and then you come back and you look at me like you’re a lost puppy. How could I possibly say something like that?”

“So your answer is to cheat and lie behind my back? So when I come home you can play the devout girlfriend?”

Costia didn’t say anything.

“Well, now you don’t have to, Costia. Now you can be free to sleep with whoever the hell you want; although you seem to have done that anyway.”

“Lexa wait!”

But she was out the door before Costia could get another word in.

She visited Gustus’ family next, knowing it was the last thing she needed. She felt defeated and hopeless as it was but she knew it was something that had to be done. Amelia cried on her shoulder for an hour after reading the letter, and Lexa stayed strong and emotionless, knowing that’s what Amelia needed from her. Brook didn’t understand why her mom was crying and on Lexa’s way out, she asked Lexa if she wanted to play Legos. Lexa shook her head and said maybe another time. There was never another time. She never saw Amelia, Brook, or Lily again. Or Costia for that matter. She spent the rest of her leave in one bar after another, getting drunk, then going to liquor stores when the bars would no longer serve her. When her leave was finally over she went back to Afghanistan, feeling even more hollow than she had when she had left.

Two months later she re-upped her service, no longer seeing the need not to. Fighting became meaningless to her; it no longer felt like she was serving a purpose but that didn’t matter to her. Nothing seemed to have a purpose anymore anyway. Two months after that, when Jaha, who always seemed to survive no matter how many men and women died under his orders, told her there was an opening in an elite squad of soldiers and he’d be happy to recommend her to the CO, she accepted. She didn’t have anything else to lose.

 

* * *

“Jesus Christ, Lexa. That’s horrible.” Clarke said, aghast.

Lexa nodded. “Yeah, it definitely wouldn’t make the greatest hits.”

“Did you ever talk to her again?”

“No. She sent me a few letters but I never bothered reading them. Just burned em’.”

“Good for you,” Clarke said. “You deserved better than that, Lexa.”

“I don’t know about that,” Lexa whispered. 

Clarke sat up straight, looking down at Lexa. “It’s hard to realize that bad things happen to us without us deserving it. I get that. I blamed myself for my dad’s death for years; part of me still does, even though I really had nothing to do with it. But it was much easier to blame myself than to accept that it was just something that senselessly happened, for no apparent reason. We want to believe there’s order in the world. But the universe has shown time and again that sometimes, shit just happens.”

“Most of the time.” Lexa corrected. “SNAFU.” 

“Huh?”

“Situation Normal: All Fucked Up.” 

They looked at each other for a moment and then burst out laughing. 

“You’re a good egg, Lex,” Clarke said, poking Lexa in her side. Lexa turned to look at her with a smile.

“Eggs,” Lexa said thoughtfully. “I miss eggs.”

Clarke hummed. “How about milk?”

Lexa wrinkled her nose.

“Not a big cereal person, huh? How about chocolate milk? Cookies dipped in milk?”

Lexa shook her head, scrunching her nose even more in disgust, making Clarke laugh.

“I guess we’ll have to agree to disagree on that one.”

“It’s getting late, Clarke. I think it’s best we get a move on and find a place to spend the night.”

Clarke and Lexa got dressed silently before leaving the one place of sanctuary they had found so far from the perils of the world around them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was a hard chapter for me to write; let me know what you think.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clarke and Lexa go through a rough patch.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's a two week time jump to move the story along. I was suffering through some writer's block so this chapter was hard to write but I hope it's still good :)

The next two weeks they fell into a rhythm. Get up, scavenge for supplies, kill walkers, do their best to avoid any other survivors (they only ran into a few others and were able to evade them easily), and find somewhere to call home for the night, maybe two if Lexa felt the place was secure enough. It was dreary and monotonous and Clarke found herself sinking into a deep depression, spending most of the time with her mind occupied on her friends, her mom, and her dad, whose comfort she desperately craved. Underlying her grief over her loved ones was a sorrow for losing the world as a whole. It seemed like each day she woke up from what little sleep she managed to get with another thing to miss. Going to the park some mornings to sit on a bench and draw in her sketchbook. Her weekly girl nights with Raven and Octavia: drinking cheap alcohol Bell had gotten for them at the behest of O, watching a movie sometimes, but mostly just talking well into the night, enjoying each other’s company. Sometimes it was just the small things that got to her, the type of things Clarke had never even thought about because of how commonplace they had been in her life: like having a warm, homemade meal, or being able to sleep in the same bed night after night in an apartment Clarke knew like the back of her hand, and she found herself missing school, despite the stress it had always caused her. But it had given her life a comfortable structure, a routine she could settle into, knowing that she was working towards something. Now she was wandering around aimlessly, her only goal to stay alive. 

Lexa sensed Clarke’s poor mood but she knew it was something Clarke had to go through, and that there wasn’t much Lexa could do to ease it. She stayed with her but gave her the space she seemed to need, the space that Lexa didn’t mind giving whatsoever. She could use the distance as well. It gave her time to reflect on Clarke. They had slipped into a pattern that hadn’t given them the ability to go off on little adventures like the one back at the waterfall. Part of Lexa felt relief at that. How carefree she had been, how open… the idea of it made her uneasy as it went against all of her usual instincts. Self-preservation: that had been her priority since… since forever really, ever since she was 7 and lost the most important person in her life, but that instinct was heightened even more during her time in the Marines, naturally enough. It’s hard to prioritize anything but self-preservation when you’re living in a war zone and your job is to dodge bullets. And once Lexa got into the habit, it was impossible to break, especially because of her last tour, in which she had utterly lost herself in mission objectives. She let it swallow her… and while she was no longer a Marine, she hadn’t quite extricated herself from its jaws. The army she had fought for might have cast her out, but she was still a soldier. Maybe in another life, in a far kinder universe, she could be the kind of person to let herself get sucked into Clarke’s orbital, the way she had in the beginning, but she was who she was. And the soldier in her demanded objectivity, demanded her to focus on surviving and nothing else. If she listened to that part of her completely, she’d have abandoned Clarke long ago. But as strong as that part of her may be, it couldn’t bring her to do that. So she stayed, Clarke’s depressive mood over the last week or so making it far easier to keep the blonde at a distance. Even so, there was another part of her that wanted to reach out to Clarke and try to bring her out of her funk. So far, the soldier in her was winning. 

Clarke woke up one morning to the sound of Lexa rapping on the bedroom door of the house they had spent the night in. Two quick taps, and then Lexa was walking down the stairs, likely waiting for Clarke by the front door, ready to get moving. Clarke stared up at the ceiling for a beat before rising from the bed in slow, sluggish movements, her weariness settling on her like a weight. She knew she was going to have to pick up her pace as soon as she was with Lexa; the Commander didn’t like to move at anything less than a breakneck speed these days, Clarke thought wryly. That definitely didn’t help her weariness any but Clarke hardly cared. Laying in bed, or walking fast through deserted towns and jammed country highways, she was going to be weary either way. As she slid on her utility belt and tightened it around her waist, she reflected that the worst part of this was the fact that the only time she really felt alive, through a burst of adrenaline that cut through the fog she had been existing in lately, was when she was fighting walkers. She didn’t want to contemplate what that meant. She knew if she brought it up with Lexa she would understand all too well. But she didn’t. Lexa was just as withdrawn as her and that was one other thing that cut through her depressive fog, but not in a good way. They coexisted but that was pretty much it. Their tense silence as they walked, Lexa usually a couple steps ahead of her, and the stilted conversation over meals was a stark contrast to that day they found the clearing with the beautiful waterfall and the pool of freshwater beneath. Remembering the way they goofed around with each other in the water, their mostly bare bodies touching as Lexa wrestled her, showing a happy, playful side of her Clarke hadn’t seen since, and then laying by the water on the warm stone to talk openly with one another, that was about the only good memory she could turn to ever since she woke up in the empty hospital back in Arkadia. 

Clarke walked down the stairs to find the front door open and Lexa waiting outside, causing her to snort.

Lexa looked back at her, eyebrows raising almost imperceptibly, but she didn’t bother asking Clarke what was so amusing. 

No, that would require her to talk to her about something that wasn’t strictly related to their survival, Clarke thought bitterly. 

They set off without a word; both knew the drill well enough by now that a prompt to get going was hardly necessary for either woman. 

The first walker they came across, Clarke cut ahead of Lexa quickly, decapitating his head with a heavy swing of her ax without breaking her stride. She took out the rest of the walkers they crossed paths in much the same way. Lexa didn’t even touch her knife until half an hour in when they saw a group of 8 walkers approaching that Clarke wouldn’t be able to easily handle on her own. But when Clarke saw Lexa’s hand resting on the hilt of her knife , preparing to unsheathe it, Clarke put her own hand on top of it in order to still her movement. Lexa looked up at Clarke, raising an eyebrow challengingly. 

“Don’t,” Clarke ordered, her tone tight and clipped enough to give Lexa pause. She kept her hand on the hilt as she searched Clarke’s face, seeing an anger boiling below the surface that Lexa hadn’t yet seen. 

Lexa narrowed her eyes and her naturally pouty lips turned down into a scowl but her hand fell from the hilt of her knife. Clarke grabbed the hilt herself and pulled out the long knife, turning it to the side to admire its sharp blade. She had used it once the day she had met Lexa when Lexa had given it to her while she went to get the keys to the truck that they had left back in the clearing. Clarke felt like an entirely different person from that girl, however. Back then, she hadn’t been ready to wield a knife this intimidating and now she wanted to see how far she had truly come from that quivering girl in the woods who couldn’t even handle one walker, let alone eight. When she looked up to meet Lexa’s eyes, they were studying her intently. If Lexa felt peeved at the way Clarke had commandeered her knife, she didn’t show it. Instead, Clarke could swear there was a faint smirk playing on her lips. However, her eyes were far from humorous; in them burned a green fire, and she raised her eyebrow again in another challenge. 

Clarke turned to face the walkers who had come closer now, but Clarke didn’t wait for them to come to her. Instead, she charged forward stridently and sliced the knife in a long fluid motion, effectively cutting through the faces of two walkers, who fell to the ground in synchrony. Clarke took half a second to admire the sharpness of the blade before slashing at the next one, using evasive footwork to keep the group from overwhelming her. She felt a fire roar through her with each slash of the blade, with each walker she sent falling to the ground with a spray of blood. Every nerve in her body was awake, the weariness she had felt before long gone. When the knife cut through the last of the walkers, she was almost disappointed. She felt like she could take on hundreds of them at the moment, without even breaking a sweat. Clarke stood there for a moment holding the bloody knife out to her side surrounded by dead bodies she had taken down. When she turned to face Lexa, this time her smirk was not faint, and the look in her eyes was one of pride. 

But Clarke kept up the nonchalant act, not wanting Lexa to see how her silent praise affected her, as she bent down to wipe the blood off the blade with one the dead’s shirts before walking over and sliding the knife back into its sheath by Lexa’s hip herself. Standing this close to Lexa, set blue eyes meeting fierce green ones, it was impossible for Clarke not to feel the heat between them. Or maybe her blood was just up from killing the walkers. 

It became an unspoken competition for them the rest of the day. Each group of walkers they came across, they switched off taking down all on their own, in a display of strength and fighting prowess for the other. Even though they didn’t speak the entire time, Clarke still felt more of a connection to Lexa today than she had in the last two weeks combined. They communicated strictly through the slash of a knife or the wielding of an ax, through fancy footwork, and the eye contact they would share each time one of them finished taking down the group of walkers they had been working on. Lexa spiced things up a little when it was her turn and there were only three walkers in the approaching group. She unsheathed her knife, spinning it around to hold it by the blade and with a flick of her wrist, sent it flying through the air until the blade buried itself into one of the walker’s head, up to the hilt, the blade coming out the other side. Clarke had seen her throw a knife the first day they met, but throwing a knife at a man’s chest was much much different from throwing a knife at someone’s head. Clarke was unable to prevent her jaw from dropping at the accuracy and the gracefulness of the shot and she was unable to correct her blatant expression of awe before Lexa turned around to glance at her, her mouth turning up into a just as blatant smirk. Clarke closed her mouth and made her face impassive.

“Now you have no weapon.” Clarke pointed out, wanting to wipe the smug look off Lexa’s face. She hardly noticed that it was the first time they had spoken all day, and the first time they had partaken in any playful teasing since the day they found the watering hole. Lexa did have her pistol and the rifle but both women knew that would be breaking the unstated rules.

To Clarke’s dismay, being sans knife didn’t take Lexa down a notch, whatsoever. If anything, it only made her more confident as she ducked out of her rifle’s strap, leaned it up against a nearby car before walking forward determinedly, swiftly kicking the legs out from under the first walker as she wrapped her hands around the throat of the second and effectively broke its neck with a brisk twist. The one on the ground was getting up but she knocked it back against a car and it fell again, its head resting between the side of the car and the open passenger door. Lexa grabbed the door and closed it a few times against the walker’s head until it went still. 

Clarke gaped at her as she removed her knife from the walker’s head, cleaned it off, and sheathed it before walking back towards Clarke. It was one thing to take down walkers with a knife or an ax, or even something as brutal as the butt of a gun, but an entirely other thing to take out a walker with your bare hands… it only served to remind Clarke how much Lexa was capable of. That the same hands that had wrapped around her comfortingly the few times they had hugged, or playfully wrestled Clarke with while swimming, could inflict so much pain. The thought was unsettling… but made Clarke feel oddly safe.

When Lexa walked back to Clarke, she saw a mixture of fear and awe on her face. Her own face was impassive as she waited for Clarke to break the silence. Somehow both women knew the last demonstration couldn’t go unspoken like the previous ones had. Clarke’s comment earlier had already served to break the ice between them, if only a little. 

“That was… something.” Clarke observed carefully. “That knife throw…” 

Lexa shrugged.

“I think you missed your calling as a circus performer.” 

Lexa chuckled despite herself. “Clearly.”

There was an awkward silence as each girl avoided looking at each other. Finally, Clarke broke it.

“You must be hungry.”

Lexa raised her eyes from the ground between them to an expression of mild hope on Clarke’s face. The soldier in her told her they needed to keep moving; they wasted enough time with her theatrics as is. But the part of her that was just her, that was Lexa, gave Clarke a small smile and agreed that she could use some food. 

Clarke looked through her backpack and let out a frustrated huff before turning to Lexa, who is already opening up a can of tomato soup. 

“Lexa?”

“Hmm?”

“Do you have a can of beef stew left?”

It was Lexa’s turn to look through her backpack. “Nope.”

“Chicken and dumplings?”

“We ate all that too.”

Clarke thought for a second and then asked hopefully, “Mac and cheese?”

Lexa shook her head regretfully. “All I’ve got is chicken noodle and tomato.”

With a discontented groan Clarke said, “If I never have to eat another can of soup, it’ll be too soon.”

“What do you have?”

“A lovely collection of creamed peas.”

Lexa wrinkled her nose in disgust.

“My thoughts exactly. It was the only thing left at the gas station we found the other day.”

“With good reason,” Lexa muttered, drawing a sardonic laugh from Clarke.

“I guess even the other survivors who passed through before us weren’t that desperate.” Clarke begrudgingly grabbed a can of the creamed peas from her bag. Before she could open it, a can of chicken noodle soup was being held out to her, an apologetic expression on Lexa’s face.

“I can’t in good conscience let you eat that junk when I have this.” Lexa insisted when Clarke didn’t take the soup.

After smiling gratefully at Lexa, Clarke finally accepted Lexa’s gift.

“Relax. It’s a can of soup, not my first-born child.” Lexa quipped.

Clarke felt happier at this moment than she had all week and she couldn’t understand how a can of soup and a couple snarky comments could have such an effect on her. All she knew was that she and Lexa were finally interacting again and she was desperate to keep it going. One thing she had found at that gas station, which ended up being mostly a bust, was a Snickers bar. She had grabbed it almost absentmindedly. Nevermind the fact that it had been stuck behind the mostly empty boxes of candy, which she had tossed aside while Lexa was waiting outside, having already finished combing through the mostly ransacked store. She had told herself she was looking for anything that wasn’t Junior Mints or Payday bars (also not an apocalypse favorite, along with creamed peas apparently), preferably a Reese’s cup, but she couldn’t hide her true motivations when she finally spotted a Snickers bar that had fallen out of its box and been shoved to the back of the rack. She had snagged it and put it in her bag, hoping that maybe she could give it to Lexa as a way to bridge the distance that had clearly built between them in the last week or so. It was clear the girl loved her Snickers almost as much as Clarke loved her Reese’s. So she took out the Snickers, which seemed to be mostly melted at this point and tossed it at Lexa, wanting to surprise her. 

She had expected Lexa’s quick reflexes to easily handle the task of catching a candy bar, surprise or not, but Clarke reflected that maybe she should have looked at Lexa and made sure she wasn’t drinking water right at the moment she threw it. As it was, the candy bar hit Lexa smack in the face, causing her to jerk and spill water down the front of her shirt.

“What the hell, Clarke?” Lexa cried, standing up and looking down at her soaked shirt. 

Clarke put both hands over her mouth. “Oh my god Lexa. I’m so sorry. I was just trying to-”

“What did you even throw at me?” Lexa interrupted, bending over to grab the object in question off the ground. Her agitation dissipated once she read the label. She dropped her hands to her sides and gave Clarke a skeptical look before bursting into laughter, shaking her head in her amusement.

Clarke let out a breath when she realized Lexa wasn’t pissed at being literally assaulted by a spontaneous gesture of goodwill and started laughing as well. 

“Jesus, Clarke. I give you my last can of chicken noodle soup and in return, I get hit in the face by a candy bar that is more liquid than solid at this point, and now I’m soaked.” Lexa said amusedly. 

“To be fair, if you had thrown the can of soup at my head I’d probably have a concussion.” Clarke countered. “And it was your last can? I’m touched.”

“Where did you even get this?” Lexa asked before looking at Clarke suspiciously. “Wait, did you steal it from my stash from Target? Because I swear to God if you hit me in the face with a candy bar you took from me…” Lexa’s hand rested on the hilt of her knife while she glowered at Clarke. A stranger looking in at this moment would believe the implicit threat wholeheartedly having not known Lexa enough to discern the mild humor gleaming behind her glare. 

Clarke rolled her eyes with a chuckle. “Ever protective of your Snicker bars, are you, Commander?”

Lexa raised one eyebrow and held her chin higher. 

“No, I did not steal one of your Snickers. I found it at the gas station.” 

Lexa dropped her hand from her knife with a smile. “But you hate Snickers.”

“I do,” Clarke said simply.

The fact that Clarke picked out a Snickers bar, knowing Lexa liked them, even when they weren’t on great terms, made Lexa warm at the simple thoughtfulness of the act. 

But Lexa just smirked and said, “You need to work on how you distribute your gifts.”

Clarke rolled her eyes at the comment. All she had to do was look in those green eyes of Lexa’s to see the silent thanks written across them.

“The way I see it, I gave you two gifts. The Snickers and the relief of cold water against your skin after a long day of fighting off walkers.”

It was Lexa’s turn to roll her eyes. “The way I see it, you owe me a bottle of water.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Clarke mumbled as they pushed off the car they had been leaning against while they had eaten, and started walking again, side by side. 

As they made their way to the next town in their ongoing trek, they talked, keeping the conversation light at first until it inevitably delved into darker subjects. Clarke told Lexa about her dad, and how supportive her mom was when he was still alive. It seemed everything had changed once he died, her mom becoming a ghost of the mother she used to be. She buried herself in her work and her expectations of Clarke becoming a doctor herself increased without Jake Griffen there to offset them. Lexa listened to Clarke tell the story of her dad’s death, which only made her respect him more. He had died honorably, trying to save the lives of others and Lexa told Clarke that if he had been in her unit as a Marine, she was sure less of her fellow soldiers would have died. 

Clarke reflected how easy it felt to open up to her. Maybe it was because they had been through a lot of traumatic situations together but Clarke thought it had a lot more to do with Lexa. 

“I thought it would get easier the more time I had to get used to everything but it seems like the first week after waking up from my coma was easier than the last two weeks.” 

“You were in shock. Now the denial has worn off and you’re left to deal with reality.” Lexa told her softly. 

Clarke sighed. “So it doesn’t get better?” 

“It will. You just need more time to accept things.”

“Accept things? How can I accept that the world has essentially ended and now it’s dog eat dog out here?”

“Humans can get used to anything, with enough time. Right now, you’re in a transition stage. Kind of like when you first jump in a pool and it’s really cold and uncomfortable but then your body adjusts and you don’t even feel the cold anymore.”

Clarke considered that. “I guess the colder the pool the longer it takes to adjust… but I mean, there must be a pool so cold you can never adjust. Right? You just freeze to death.” 

“Some people can’t take it.” Lexa agreed. 

“You were made for the pool. You’re like a fucking mermaid.”

Lexa laughed. “I think the proper analogy would be a shark.”

“Yeah, I can’t imagine you in a coconut bra.”

And then Clarke could imagine Lexa in a coconut bra and she couldn’t breathe for a second. 

Lexa smirked, noticing the way Clarke’s face went pink. She decided to spare her the embarrassment by not teasing her any further about it. 

An hour later they were walking through the streets of Belmar, just another town out of the dozens they’d passed through so far. They made the usual stops: the grocery store (where Clarke was able to find something other than creamed peas), a sporting goods store that Lexa hoped would include hunting so they could stock up on ammunition (it didn’t, and this town wasn’t big enough to warrant a police department), and finally a drug store, where Clarke insisted it might be a good idea to stock up on basic first aid supplies (Aspirin, Neosporin, gauze, and band-aids, as well as a fair amount of Reese’s cups; Clarke had shrugged and said defensively, “Sugar helps the medicine go down.” Lexa retorted with a comment about how glad she was that pre-medical training included the wise words of Mary Poppins). Finally, they were back on the street, feeling much more confident about their inventory of supplies as they walked along the sidewalk, swiftly handling any walker who came their way. They passed a building set on a plot of land that must have been pretty when there were people around to take care of it. The sign on the old looking building informed them it was Belmar’s Community Library.

“We should stop in. It looks nice.” Clarke suggested, stopping on the sidewalk in front of the path that led to the front door.

“It looks decrepit.” Lexa countered.

Clarke rolled her eyes. “It does not. It has a kind of old-fashioned small-town charm to it.” 

“If you say so.”

“Can we go in?”

“It can’t hurt… and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t miss reading.” Lexa admitted.

“Me too. I could definitely stand to lose myself in another reality right about now.” 

Inside, they were greeted with the sight of rows of book shelves stretching all the way across the wide room. In the center of the room was a small lounge area with a worn but comfortable looking leather couch, with matching chairs surrounding it. The floors below them were old hardwood that creaked under their feet. The overall atmosphere was one of warmth, of quiet tranquility and it immediately eased Clarke and Lexa. It was almost crazy how the apocalypse could turn something as commonplace as a small town library (which was really quite modest compared to some of the other libraries both Lexa and Clarke had visited in the past) into an almost reverent sanctuary. Standing in the doorway, and looking at all the books, each of them offering a glimpse into what the world had been like before it all came crashing down, Clarke felt tethered to what she had already come to think of as her “old life”. 

Lexa saw the library almost like an anthropologist would, as if hundreds of years had passed instead of just a month and a half. She wondered what a true anthropologist would think if he or she had to surmise what the world had been like based only on the books on display in front of her right now. But Lexa knew more than anyone that whatever conclusion these fictional scholars would come to would only scratch the surface of what humanity was like, that the true nature of humans was more likely to be found outside the safety of these four walls, not buried between the covers of a book. 

Regardless, they took their time walking down the various aisles of the library, brushing their fingers along the spine of each book as they went, occasionally pulling one out to lazily leaf through it. 

Clarke came to a stop in the Young Adult section with an amused chuckle. 

“Look at this, Lexa. Look at how many of these books are about dystopian realities where the characters have to fight to survive. You’ve got the Hunger Games series, the Maze Runner series, Divergent. There’s so many of them!” Clarke enthused.

Lexa snorted in response.

“We were so fascinated with the end of the world. Why?”

Lexa shrugged. “Some people read stories about horrible realities because it makes them feel comforted that, as miserable as their reality might be, it’s better than whatever the characters have to face.”

“Do you find comfort in that?” Clarke asked softly and Lexa shook her head.

“I don’t need to be coddled.”

Lexa picked up a book off the shelf, turning it over to read the summary on the back out loud. “One hundred teenage delinquents are sent to Earth to inhabit the planet after a nuclear war forced most of humanity to take refuge in space.” Lexa scoffed as she put the book back in its place. “Well, that’s just ridiculous.”

Clarke smirked. “Sounds kind of intriguing if you ask me: placing the fate of the world on a bunch of teenagers.”

“Of course it’s a saga. You can’t just stop at one book these days.” Lexa mumbled as she glanced over the titles of the three other books in the series.

“Ok, let’s get out of this section before you have an aneurysm.” Clarke insisted as she pushed a resistant Lexa forward. 

They went from idly browsing the library to seeking out each of their favorite books to show the other. Clarke watched in awe as a side of Lexa she hadn’t yet seen came out as she explained the plot of her favorite books and why she loved them so much, her hands gesticulating as she talked, her eyes shining with the passion she clearly felt. Clarke could listen to her talk like this all day and never get bored, even if her not having read whatever book Lexa was talking about made most of what she was saying go completely over her head. It was enough just to see the sparkle in her eyes, the smile on her lips, and to have her talk so freely with her. Even if she was talking about a book, Clarke felt like she was getting an exclusive look into who Lexa was personally, based on what parts of a story had stood out to her, resonated with her. They explored the library until the exhaustion of the day hit them and they collapsed onto the leather sofa together.

“Should we just stay here for the night?” Clarke asked. She really didn’t feel like moving.

“I wouldn’t object to that. I wonder if there’s another couch; maybe in the back?” 

“Let’s go check.” 

Lexa got up, giving a hand to Clarke who couldn’t seem to bring herself to move from her position of utter bliss. Lexa shook her head with a slight smirk, although she couldn’t say she didn’t relate. She felt bone-tired herself. 

They crossed the room together, towards the desk that was situated on the left side of the room, a door with frosted glass behind it. Lexa opened it, holding her rifle out in front of her, mostly out of habit, and was greeted with the sight of a cluttered office: a desk against the wall with papers overflowing it, boxes of books stacked around it, and a couch to the right. On the couch, to Lexa’s dismay, was a sleeping figure. The couch wasn’t big and as a result, the legs of the woman draped over the armrest opposite the one her head was leaning on, her body curled in on itself. A crossbow was leaning against the couch, in grabbing distance of the hand hanging limply off the side. Lexa held her hand up to Clarke, signaling for her to be quiet. 

Clarke cocked her head curiously until she saw the sleeping form in front of them. Her bone structure was as impeccable as Lexa’s, although her cheekbones were much higher up, and her face was more angular than Lexa’s was. While they had stuck more to the opposite side of the library, this girl must have been completely out of it if she hadn’t woken up to them puttering around in the next room. If Clarke didn’t see the way her chest rose and fell, she would think the woman was dead.

Lexa gestured for Clarke to back up, thinking they could just walk out while the woman slept and no one would be the wiser. Unfortunately, the floors did not allow that and as soon as Lexa took one step back, a loud creak sent the woman jolting out of her slumber, crossbow situated against her shoulder and trained on Lexa in a flash. 

“Who the fuck are you?” The woman yelled.

“We were just passing through. We’re on our way out now.” Lexa replied calmly, leveling her rifle at the woman, who was now standing on the couch. The situation would be almost comical if the threat of being impaled by an arrow wasn’t imminent. 

Clarke, for her part, had her own pistol out and aimed at the woman as well.

“It’s two against one.” Lexa continued. “Maybe your crossbow can shoot fast enough to hit me or my friend but you’ll be dead before you’re even able to reach for another one.”

The woman narrowed her eyes. “If I lower mine, will you lower yours?” 

“Deal.” 

The three women lowered their weapons hesitantly, ready to swing them back up at any minute if the other decided to renege on the shaky truce. 

“I’ve been staying in this library for two weeks and you’re the first people who have ever come in here.” 

“I guess not many people are looking to check out books anymore,” Lexa replied.

“I guess not.” The woman agreed. “I’m Anya.”

“Lexa.”

“I’m Clarke.” Clarke introduced with a smile. 

“Well, I guess I should thank you for not killing me in my sleep,” Anya said flatly.

“That’s something I never thought I’d have to be thanked for.” Clarke mused and Anya snorted. 

“You two look like you’ve been through the ringer.” 

Lexa shrugged. “We’ve been on the road.”

“Don’t fancy settling down?”

“Lexa is most comfortable when we’re on the move,” Clarke explained. “She gets antsy if we stick in one spot for too long.”

Lexa rolled her eyes. “It’s not as if we’ve found anywhere that’s worth sticking around for.”

“I think the real reason is she fancies herself a Bear Grylls survivalist type.” Clarke teased. 

“Ha!” Lexa exclaimed scornfully. “I’m much more of a survivalist than that fraud.” 

“That guy’s a fraud? No way.” Anya cut in. 

“He was caught staying in a motel during a shoot,” Lexa said.

“Honestly I could be considered a survivalist based on the quality of some of the motels I’ve stayed in,” 

Clarke wrinkled her nose. “I’ve watched enough Hotel Hell that I don’t need you to elaborate on that.” 

“I’m talking cockroaches crawling-” But Anya was cut off by Clarke’s cries of disgust. “You can handle walking dead people but cockroaches are where you draw the line?”

“At least walkers die when you cut their heads off.” Clarke defended weakly. Lexa smirked at Clarke’s obvious discomfort. “I have a thing about bugs, ok? Everyone has a thing. You probably have a thing.”

“Can’t say I do,” Lexa said.

“I don’t mind most bugs but butterflies?” Anya shuddered.

“Those are about the only bugs I can stand,” Clarke said, amused at the idea of someone as intimidating as Anya looked being scared of something as harmless as a butterfly. 

“Their legs are long and creepy.” 

“Yeah, but at least they know their place. I’ve never been in a motel infested with butterflies, for instance.” 

“Clarke, I think it’s best we go.” Lexa cut in. “If we want to find a place to sleep before it’s dark out, that is.”

Anya looked between Lexa and Clarke for a moment, who were looking at each other as if Anya wasn’t there. “There’s no reason why we can’t all stay here.” 

When Clarke and Lexa looked up at Anya, surprise was written clearly on their faces. Clarke’s was of a more pleasant variety, whereas Lexa's seemed a little uneasy.

“We can stay out of each other’s way if you’d prefer. But it’s not like we’d be fighting over space in here. I can have this room and you can have the main room.”

Lexa considered it. Part of her was indeed exhausted from the long day of taking down all those walkers and wanted nothing more than to just be able to relax and maybe read a book for the first time in a long while in one of those lounge chairs in the center of the library. The other part of her felt uneasy at sharing a space with a stranger, although nothing in her instincts were telling her they had anything, in particular, to worry about Anya. But that didn’t mean she was willing to sleep unguarded in the same building with her. 

Lexa didn’t have to look at Clarke to know how she stood on the matter. When she did, she saw the hopeful look in her eyes and rolled her eyes.

“Clarke, can I talk to you for a second?” Lexa asked. “In private?”

Clarke nodded and allowed Lexa to lead her back to the main room, shutting the door behind them. Before Lexa could say anything, however, Clarke held up her hand.

“I know what you’re going to say, Lexa. It wouldn’t be smart of us to sleep under the same roof as someone we don’t know, no matter how nice they might seem. If you want to leave and go find somewhere else to spend the night, I won’t argue with you.” Clarke paused. “But she is the first person we’ve met, other than Emori, who seems like a… normal person.” 

Lexa evaluated what Clarke was saying versus what her own instincts were telling her. Looking around the comfortable room, at the rows of books that lined the walls and each bookcase between, it was hard to think of leaving to go find some deserted, lifeless house to sleep in, a house that was tainted with the people who used to live there, people who were surely dead. The library, on the other hand, still held a shred of warmth and hominess. It wasn’t marred by the destruction of the world; if anything, it was only made more sacred by it. 

With an exaggerated sigh, Lexa agreed to spend the night here, and even with the obvious risks attached, it was well worth it to see the smile that spread across Clarke’s face.


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lexa and Clarke get to know Anya a little better.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There isn't as much action in this chapter as there was in the last ones. But I hope you still like it :)

Clarke, Lexa, and Anya sat around the lounge area in the main room, eating what passed for dinner: stale crackers Anya had salvaged from the market a few days ago, and chicken noodle soup. Lexa and Clarke both agreed to have dinner with Anya, but for vastly different reasons. For Lexa, it only made sense for her to get to know the stranger in order to could confirm that Anya was indeed safe to spend the night with. For Clarke, it was simply the pleasure of being able to talk to another survivor who didn’t have sadistic tendencies.

“I’m actually a real estate agent, believe it or not.” Anya was currently saying.

“How does a real estate agent become so skilled with a crossbow?” Clarke asked.

“Oh, you haven’t even seen me shoot yet. For all you know I could suck.”

“Fair enough.”

“I doubt it’d be your choice of weapon if you weren’t any good with it.” Lexa pointed out and Anya raised her eyebrows.

“Is that a challenge?”

Lexa shrugged.

“Clarke, do me a favor and throw the empty box of crackers as far into the air as you can throw it,” Anya said, her eyes never leaving Lexa’s as she picked up her crossbow.

Clarke could only chuckle at what was clearly some weird show of dominance between the two before following Anya’s order.

The empty box flew through the air in a parabolic curve and just as it started to descend an arrow sliced cleanly through it. The arrow stuck into the far wall, the box caught on its shaft.

“It’s much more impressive when the target is some roamer and not an empty box of crackers,” Anya said with a shrug before putting her crossbow back down.

“Still,” Clarke argued. “That was pretty cool.”

Lexa nodded to show her appreciation.

“My ex-girlfriend was some crossbow aficionado. She had a whole arsenal of them: different models, sizes, colors, you name it. She insisted on teaching me. I laughed at her, joked about how something like a crossbow could ever be useful. At least a pistol you can hide in your purse, you know what I mean?” Anya chuckled, shaking her head. “But she said any schmo could probably learn how to point and shoot a gun; a crossbow, that’s a little different. I guess I was a natural. Some people can dance, others can sing; I can shoot a goddamn crossbow. The first thing I did when this shit went down? I went to her house; hadn’t seen her in 6 months since she broke up with me but the impending end of civilization as we knew it kind of trumped my bitterness on her walking out on me. She wasn’t home, but I knew she kept her crossbows in the garage and I knew her garage code, so… I took one.”

“It’s not a bad weapon to have, I have to say. You don’t have to worry about ammunition.” Lexa said.

“You look pretty comfortable with that rifle,” Anya replied. “I haven’t seen you shoot it, but the way you handle it…”

Despite the fact that it was meant as a compliment, Lexa tensed immediately. Anya was getting too close to the truth behind why that was. She might have been comfortable talking to Clarke about it, at least the surface of it, but she wasn’t ready to go into it with a stranger. The memories of the last time she had handled a rifle, before all this mess, flooded her brain. The images never fully left; they lurked in the background of her consciousness, waiting for moments like this when they could be brought to the forefront.

Clarke could tell by the way Lexa’s jaw was clenched, and the cold look in her eyes, that she felt uncomfortable by Anya’s comment and she rushed to redirect the conversation, knowing that the subject Anya was tapping into wasn’t an easy one for Lexa.

“What was your plan after getting the crossbow?” Clarke asked.

Anya shrugged. “Stay alive.”

“That’s a solid plan.”

“Eh. It’s proved to be pretty problematic.”

Lexa grunted in agreement.

“I’m from Hillway, about a month trek from here. Everyone I knew fled to TonDC but something felt fishy about that. Maybe I’ve just never been one to do what the government tells me to do. So I went my own way. Ended up here about two weeks ago and decided to just call this home.”

“It seems like a pretty good setup.” Clarke agreed.

“It’s not half-bad… I’m exhausted, as you could probably tell from earlier. I think I’m going to head to bed. It was nice meeting you both.”

Anya retreated to the back room, leaving Lexa and Clarke on the couch alone.

“You can have the couch, Clarke.”

“You sure? You’ll be comfortable enough sleeping in that chair?”

Lexa nodded. She wasn’t planning on sleeping tonight; she hardly felt comfortable enough to with Anya in the next room. Luckily, she had plenty of books to occupy her time.

“Good night, Lex.”

“Good night, Clarke.”

__________________________________________________________________________

Clarke was running through the forest, zigzagging through the trees as she tried to escape the walkers pursuing her. They were much faster than the ones she had run into thus far and seemed utterly relentless in catching her as if they were after her specifically. Clarke felt the terror within her like it was a live thing trying to fight its way out of her. All she could do was run; she had no weapons and she was alone. The dark made it hard to navigate the forest. Sometimes she would only be alerted to the presence of a tree at the last minute and would have to jerk quickly to the side to avoid running into it, lest the walkers behind her finally catch up to her. The woods were silent around her, except for the groaning and grunting coming from her pursuers. Clarke could have sworn the sounds coming out of their mouths sounded an awfully lot like her name. She was too scared to look back over her shoulder; too scared that if she did, it would be to the sight of them finally catching up to her and consequently, be the last thing she ever saw before their teeth ripped into her flesh.

Up ahead, she could see a gap between the trees and when she ran through it, she was greeted by the sight of a waterfall with a pool of water below it. It didn’t take her long to realize it was the same place she and Lexa had found two weeks ago. The last good day. Sitting on the stone, right where they had laid in the sun after their swim, was Lexa’s knife wrapped in its sheath. Clarke ran for it, bending over slightly to grab the hilt and remove the blade from its covering, before standing upright and turning around to face the horde of walkers coming towards her, determined to stop running and finally stand her ground and fight. All that determination within her deflated when she looked more closely at the walkers in front of her.

Across from her stood Raven, Octavia, Lincoln, Bellamy, Monty, and Jasper, all in various stages of decay as they snapped their jaws and groaned Clarke’s name. Coming up on their left was her mom with a gaping hole in her stomach, guts spilling out with each movement her mom made.

As they came closer, Clarke backed up, holding the knife in front of her with shaky hands, but when it came down to it, she just couldn’t bring herself to use it against the people she loved and the blade fell to the stone at her feet with a clatter.

Her friends, her family, were on her in a flash, their teeth sinking into her skin, as they groaned, “Clarke, Clarke, Clarke, Cl-”

_________________________________________________________________________

“Clarke, Clarke.”

The hand shaking her awake was gentle but Clarke still jerked up with a gasp, chest heaving, eyes flitting around as she took in her surroundings. It was dark, but that was the only resemblance her current environment had to the dream she had just been woken from. Lexa’s face, subtly lit by the moonlight that poured in through the windows, giving her defined face a soft glow, was close to hers, green eyes filled with concern.

“You were crying out and moving in your sleep,” Lexa explained sheepishly. “You must have been having a nightmare.”

Clarke lay back on the couch, letting out a shaky breath. “I’m sorry if I woke you, Lex.”

Lexa shook her head. “You didn’t. I was awake, reading.” She held up the book in her hand.

“Why weren’t you asleep?”

“I decided to stay up, keep watch.”

Clarke furrowed her eyebrows as she sat up. “Lex, why didn’t you tell me? We could have traded off.”

“I don’t mind. Sleep hasn’t provided much of an escape lately, anyway.”

Clarke’s eyes softened, knowing all too well about Lexa’s own struggles with nightmares. “Still, you need rest. Go to sleep, Lexa. I’ll keep watch the rest of the night. It’s not like I’ll be able to go back to bed with the nightmare I just had.”

“Do you want to talk about it?” Lexa offered and Clarke shook her head.

“Not right now. I think I just need to distract myself. You take the couch, Lex.”

Lexa looked down at her book, seeming to debate something, before handing it to Clarke. “This might help take your mind off things.”

“TS Eliot. I didn’t know you were into poetry.”

Lexa brushed some loose hair behind her ear, smiling shyly. “My mom loved poetry. She could read it for hours.”

Clarke smiled back as she got up off the couch so Lexa could lay down on her back, looking up at the ceiling with a wistful look in her eyes.

“One of her favorites was The Lovesong of J Alfred Prufrock,” Lexa whispered, turning her head to look at Clarke. “Have you read it?”

Clarke shook her head no, not wanting to speak and break the spell. Lexa seemed so vulnerable in this moment, her eyes shining in the moonlight, her hair draped over one shoulder exposing the elegant curve of her neck; she looked more feminine than Clarke had ever seen her. Like she was something delicate instead of the tough warrior she showed to the rest of the world.

“She would read poems to me as I fell asleep.” Lexa reflected. “They weren’t happy ones by any means, but I was too young to really understand what they meant. It was enough just to hear my mom’s voice soothing me to sleep.”

Clarke started to think that maybe the shine in her eyes was more than just the reflection of the moonlight.

“It wasn’t until I reread them later when I was older, that I finally realized…” Lexa stopped, her jaw tensed as she sucked her bottom lip into her mouth and took a deep breath before turning to meet Clarke’s eyes. “Do you think you could read one to me?”

Clarke’s eyebrows raised in surprise before she nodded. “Of course. Which one would you like me to read?”

“The Lovesong of J Alfred Prufrock,” Lexa answered, her eyes closed.

Clarke went to the book's table of contents and turned to the correct page. She took a deep breath, studying the serene expression on Lexa’s face, before reading the poem in a soft but firm voice.

“Let us go then, you and I,  
When the evening is spread out against the sky  
Like a patient etherized upon a table;  
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,  
The muttering retreats  
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels  
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:  
Streets that follow like a tedious argument  
Of insidious intent  
To lead you to an overwhelming question ...  
Oh, do not ask, “What is it?”  
Let us go and make our visit…”

Five minutes later, she recited the final line, “We have lingered in the chambers of the sea/By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown/Till human voices wake us, and we drown,” and closed the book to see Lexa fast asleep, with a single tear trailing down her cheek.

Clarke spent the remainder of the night reading the rest of the book and regularly looking over at Lexa as she slept. Occasionally her eyebrows would furrow as if whatever she was dreaming was troubling her and she’d toss and turn for a bit before finally settling down again. It gave Clarke plenty of time to study and appreciate Lexa’s features: the strong line of her jaw, her defined cheekbones, the elegant shape of her nose, and her full lips that seemed to naturally form into a slight pout. All the way down to the tendons in her neck that became more pronounced with each breath she took. Clarke’s fingers itched to get Lexa down on paper and she knew one day she would have no choice but to give into that urge, but for now, it was enough just to admire them between the lines of poetry she was reading. While Clarke had always loved to read, she had never gotten into poetry. Frankly, she couldn’t understand how poets could write stanza after stanza on any particular subject: often a woman or the moon or some other such thing. When she saw something that captivated her, her instinct was to draw it, not write about it under the veil of metaphors, rhyming schemes, and often convoluted language. But as she carefully studied Lexa’s face under the soft glow of the moonlight, she finally began to understand what it was poets were trying to say all along.

Lexa woke up a few hours later to find Clarke reading curled up in the chair.

“Good morning.” Clarke greeted when she saw Lexa sit up on the couch.

“Mornin’.” Lexa returned. “Any news from the other room?”

Clarke shook her head. “Anya really likes her sleep. Speaking of, how did you sleep last night?”

“Not bad,” Lexa admitted, as she grabbed some canned peaches out of her backpack.

Clarke’s mouth fell open at the sight of the can. “Where did you get those?”

“At the market yesterday.”

Clarke narrowed her eyes. “Why didn’t I know about this?”

Lexa smirked, raising her eyebrow. “Oh, and since when do I report to you?”

“Wow, so not only did you sneakily grab canned peaches behind my back, you were going to eat them in front of me when you know they're my favorite?”

Lexa chuckled as she opened up the can with a pocket knife she had also found in the market and used the tip of it to spear one of the sliced peaches. She pointedly looked at Clarke as she bit into the sweet fruit. Before Clarke could even roll her eyes, Lexa speared another slice of peach and held it out for her.

“You must think very poorly of me, princess if you thought I wasn’t going to share.”

Clarke smiled as she grabbed Lexa’s hand to steady it and bit into the peach. Lexa’s heart raced at the unexpected intimacy of the moment, which was immediately broken by Anya, who dropped down in front of them with a loud yawn, hair messy from sleep.

“Good morning.” Clarke greeted and Anya grunted in response.

“It’s not a good morning without coffee. And not any of that instant shit either.” Anya said.

“It’s not a good morning when the world is in shambles and dead people walk the earth.” Lexa pointed out.

“Yeah, that too,” Anya mumbled as she rifled through her bag and pulled out another box of crackers to munch on.

“Is that all you have?” Clarke asked. “You can’t expect to survive on just crackers.”

“Yes, because that’s what poses a threat to my life: my carb intake.”

Clarke rolled her eyes. “No, I just mean you can’t expect to have a bunch of energy if all you eat is crackers.”

Anya sighed. “I’m depressed, blondie. And when I’m depressed I like to binge on junk food and sleep my day away. It’s amazing I’m even up this early.”

“It sounds like the apocalypse is treating you well then,” Lexa said flatly.

“Oh, that’s why I got up. Clearly, it was to enjoy your radiant personality.”

Lexa stared at Anya impassively, her eyes narrowing slightly.

Clarke looked between the two women and decided it would be best if she redirected the conversation. “Well, here, I have some canned food in my bag if you want some.” Clarke tossed Anya her backpack.

Lexa shook her head slightly before getting up from her position on the couch.

“I’m going to take a walk.”

“I’ll come with you,” Clarke said, following Lexa out the door. Lexa walked in front of her, without paying her much attention until they reached the sidewalk.

“What’s wrong, Lex?”

“Nothing is wrong. You left your bag of supplies with a complete stranger but it’s your prerogative to do whatever you want with your stuff.”

“I only followed you out because you seemed upset. And why? Because I offered someone else some soup? If you’re so concerned about it, let’s go to the store right now and pick up some more.”

“Clarke, it’s not about the goddamn soup.” Lexa spat through her teeth. “I mean that’s part of it, sure. But the whole of it is you’re acting all chummy with a complete stranger!”

Clarke rolled her eyes. “Lexa, I’m not acting ‘chummy’ with her. I’m just acting like a human being! We shared a living space together. What the fuck am I supposed to do, just ignore her when she comes out to talk to us? Or be like you and make snide comments?”

Lexa made a scoffing noise as she shook her head in disbelief.

“‘Oh, the apocalypse is treating you well then.’” Clarke mocked. “What was that?”

“Yeah, well, it’s clear that she has given up. She’s spent the last two weeks holed up in that goddamn library, sleeping as much as she likes, while the rest of us are barely scraping along.”

Clarke groaned in frustration. “And what’s so wrong with that? Huh? What’s so bad about wanting to stay still for once instead of constantly being in motion?”

“You have got to be kidding me, Clarke.” Lexa stepped closer to Clarke, her jaw clenched so tightly Clarke almost expected her to crack a tooth. “Maybe it’s the fact that it’s only through pure luck that she hasn’t been killed yet. Yesterday, we were in that library for an hour and she didn’t wake up until we came right upon her. If it had been anyone else but us, she’d be dead by now because she’s too reckless to care about her own survival.”

Clarke met Lexa’s steely gaze. “Well, we can’t all be perfect survivors, like you, Lexa.”

“Clearly. That’s why I’m alive when so many other people are dead.” Lexa replied bitterly, looking away from Clarke.

Clarke saw some of the fight go out of Lexa and immediately softened. “Lexa, I didn’t mean-”

“Forget it, Clarke,” Lexa muttered, starting to walk again.

“No, Lexa. I don’t want to forget it. Let’s talk about it.”

Lexa spun around to face Clarke. “Talk about what? About the fact that it’s so clear you’d rather hole up in the library with Anya than…” She shook her head in exasperation before turning around again.

“What?” Clarke exclaimed, jogging to catch up with Lexa. “What are you talking about?”

Lexa didn’t say anything, kept her mouth shut and eyes straight ahead as she walked. Clarke cut in front of Lexa’s path, stopping her short and drawing a sharp glare from Lexa.

“Are you jealous?”

“Jealous?” Lexa scoffed. “Why would I be jealous, princess? Neither of us has any claim over the other.”

“No… but it’s been just us two for the past few weeks and I know you don’t get along easily with strangers and I could see how you could feel… slighted.”

Lexa took a deep breath, trying to get a handle on the swirl of emotions running through her mind at the moment. “I get it. I’m not easy to be around and I know you’re missing your friends and humanity in general and my inability to connect with others just holds you back.”

Clarke felt a strong ache in her heart at the sight of Lexa looking so dejected. She desperately searched for the words that would help bring the soldier back to her usual collectedness. “You don’t hold me back, Lexa. If anything, you make me stronger. If it weren’t for you, I’d be dead right now. But it’s more than that, Lex. It’s… I like your company.” Clarke finished lamely. “If you want to go, let’s go. I’ll go back and grab my stuff and we’ll head out.”

Lexa smiled at Clarke, feeling her chest warm not only at Clarke’s words but at the way she would choose navigating the dangerous world with her over staying in the comfort of the library with Anya.

“I might have judged Anya too harshly,” Lexa admitted. “I know what it’s like to be swallowed up by depression and boy, do we all have lots to be depressed about these days.” Plus, Lexa could see how well Anya handled herself the crossbow.

“What are you saying?”

“I’m saying, let’s stay here a little longer and evaluate.”

Clarke raised her eyebrows. “Evaluate what?”

Lexa rolled her eyes, knowing Clarke was goading her. “Careful, princess.” She warned but Clarke only snickered. God, she could be infuriating sometimes. But Lexa was smiling as she walked back to the library.

“Do I want to know what you did to Ms. Grumpy Pants in order to get her to smile like that?” Anya said when they got back to the library.

“What?” Clarke asked, taken aback.

“Hey, no shame. I wish I had someone to take my mind off things.” Anya said with a chuckle.

“We’re not-” “That’s not-” Lexa and Clarke talked over each other before cutting their sentences short in order to let the other one continue.

“We’re not together… in that way.” Clarke explained.

Anya raised her eyebrows, looking at them in mild surprise, and then burst into laughter. “You had me fooled.”

Lexa blushed, choosing to occupy her attention with adjusting her utility belt. Clarke couldn’t help but smirk at Lexa’s shyness.

“Thanks for the soup, Clarke,” Anya said, handing Clarke her bag.

“Don’t mention it.” Clarke took out her own can of soup and the three girls chatted idly while they ate. The light chatter didn’t last long before it turned to more serious subjects, however.

“I’m not much in the way of a scientist but this virus, or whatever it is, is odd,” Anya said.

Lexa chuckled ruefully. “Seeing as it brings people back from the dead, I’d say so.”

“Well, yeah. But the way it spreads also doesn’t really make sense. One, it doesn’t seem to affect animals in the slightest. Which would be normal enough I suppose. There are plenty of human diseases that don’t affect animals and vice versa. But it’s highly contagious in the sense that one scratch from one of those things is a death sentence, yeah?”

Lexa nodded.

“But… from what I could tell actually ingesting the blood of one of them doesn’t have an effect on you, you know, other than the fact that it’s fucking disgusting and makes you throw up like a motherfucker.”

Clarke gaped at Anya. “What the… How do you know that?”

Lexa sprung up, eyeing Anya like she was a dangerous animal. “Did you… eat one?”

“What? No!” Anya cried. “Some of their blood got in my mouth by accident. I…” She sighed. “Before I found this place when I was still moving from place to place much like you two are, a large herd had me trapped in some house, on all sides. I knew I couldn’t hide in there forever, the force of the… what do you two call them? Walkers? The force of all those walkers would likely break the door down eventually, or break through one of the windows. Luckily for me, there were two walkers upstairs, trapped behind some door. Which was weird because they didn’t have any bites or scratches on them…”

Clarke’s eyes lit up. “We saw something like that too. This boy… he was killed by his parents. Smothered it seemed like. But he was a walker. It made no sense.”

Anya nodded. “That’s what is mostly so odd about all this. It makes sense to me that if you get bit or scratched you turn into a walker, but turning into one without being bit or scratched…?”

Lexa’s eyebrows furrowed as she thought about it, the conversation between Anya and Clarke fading into the background as she remembered the multiple walkers she herself had found that seemed to not have a mark on them.

“Anyway, I decided my only hope of escaping the situation was if I killed the two walkers upstairs and… rubbed their blood all over me.”

That was enough to bring Lexa out of her thoughts. “You what?”

“Why?” Clarke asked, feeling nauseous at the thought of willingly rubbing walker guts all over herself. She remembered when she was soaked with the blood from that walker she had killed the day she met Lexa; that had been bad enough.

“I figured, walkers must be able to tell the difference between humans and other walkers, right? Otherwise, they would eat each other. At the same time, walkers are pretty fucking dumb. They are like the poster child for having a one-track mind. And that track happens to be killing and eating humans. Beyond that, there’s not much else to ‘em. But one thing that is a pretty obvious difference between a human and a walker, a difference a brain-damaged mule could figure out is-”

“The smell.” Lexa finished.

Anya pointed at Lexa. “They smell like… well, like a decaying body, because that’s what they are. So I thought maybe if I smelled like a dead body too, they wouldn’t pay attention to me. And I was right. But as careful as I was I accidentally got some in my mouth.” Anya grimaced. “I freaked out, thinking I was surely toast and I did get as sick as a dog but it didn’t kill me or turn me into one of them.”

“That is odd.” Clarke agreed, still stuck on the image of Anya rubbing the blood of a corpse all over herself. Lexa thought that as displeasing as it sounded it was definitely resourceful and spoke of Anya’s cleverness. Maybe she had underestimated the woman.

“I’ve had lots of time to think about it since I found the library. I tried to read some books on pathology, but they were too hard to get through.”

“I could probably read them, but I don’t think they’d be much help. This is pretty unprecedented.” Clarke replied.

“No shit.”

“Conversations like this are a waste of time. It’s not like we’re going to figure out how to cure this thing.” Lexa commented.

Clarke’s eyebrows furrowed.“Well, maybe we won’t. But that doesn’t mean someone else can’t.”

Lexa shrugged. “Who?”

“Someone. Anyone. Come on, Anya. You must believe there’s at least some hope.”

Anya’s lips thinned to a line as she looked down, unable to meet the desperation in Clarke’s eyes. Clarke’s shoulders slumped.

“There’s nothing wrong with you holding out hope, Clarke,” Lexa said. “I’m just unable to. This… This is it for us.”

“Maybe the walkers are our new reality, but that doesn’t mean we have to give up. We can band together with other survivors, build a community. We can do something other than spending our whole lives walking from one desolate town to the next or holing up in some library because the outside world is too scary. If that’s all there is for us, then what’s even the point? Why the hell are we fighting so hard to survive if there’s nothing to survive for?”

Lexa was unable to provide an answer to that question; frankly, she hadn’t had anything to survive for in a long time. She had gotten rather used to putting all her energy towards survival, little leftover for anything else.

“Jesus, blondie, you’re going to propel me into an existential crisis if you’re not careful,” Anya replied.

Clarke rolled her eyes, rising up from her position on the floor. “Better that than the emptiness I’ve been feeling lately. I’m going to take a walk.” Clarke bent down to grab her utility belt, fastening it around her waist, and picking up her ax for good measure.

Lexa sensed Clarke wanted to be alone but she couldn’t help but worry about the idea of Clarke heading out on her own. Some of that concern must have been written on her face because Clarke lingered a little longer, looking down at Lexa with an exhausted look on her face.

“I’ll be fine, Lexa. I can handle myself.”

“I know that,” Lexa replied. Clarke’s ability to protect herself had grown immensely since Lexa had first met her and she had no doubt that the blonde could hold her own. Still, it was a dangerous world out there and she was likely to run into anything and there was little she could do against, say, a group of survivors who would jump at the chance to take advantage of the fact that Clarke was alone, or maybe an especially big herd of walkers.

“How about Anya and I come with you? We’ll hang back, let you have your space, but be there just in case.” Lexa suggested.

“Sure, don’t bother asking me if-” Anya stopped short when Lexa shot her a glare. “A walk sounds great.” She continued flatly.

Anya and Lexa walked in silence at first, far enough behind Clarke that she could feel as if she was the only one outside. Both women watched as she handled each walker who came towards her, leaving the path completely clear for them so they didn’t have much else to do but walk awkwardly side by side, glancing around the empty, looted buildings for any sign of trouble, an uneasy tension between them. Lexa hadn’t known Anya remotely long enough to trust her and being around strangers had never come easily to her anyway. Not like it seemed to for Clarke. It was Anya who broke the silence, as she had never been one to walk on eggshells and always chose to beat the bush directly instead of around it.

“You don’t like me very much, do you?”

Lexa eyed her with a wry expression on her face. The woman asked it casually like it didn’t matter to her either way.

“It’s nothing personal.”

“So it’s, like, a general misanthropy, then?” Anya nodded appreciatively. “I get it. People suck.”

Lexa snorted.

“My ex, the crossbow aficionado one, she broke up with me because I didn’t smile enough. Like what the fuck is that? Somehow I’m weird for being a generally stoic person even though she’s the one with an arsenal in her garage big enough to supply an army. An anti-gun army at that.”

Lexa smirked slightly but didn’t say anything. That didn’t deter Anya one bit, however.

“My dad is a twat. I only use that word because I feel like every other insult has been exhausted to the point where they don’t mean anything anymore. I mean, everyone is kind of an asshole. Lots of people are dicks. But twat? You don’t hear that a lot. Twat is very underrated.” Anya thought for a second and then chuckled dryly. “In more ways than one.”

“Is there a point to your rambling?” Lexa asked, amused.

“People suck,” Anya replied.

Lexa nodded.

“Your girl somehow-”

“She’s not my girl.”

“Do you want her to be?”

Lexa gave her a stern look. “Not that it’d be any of your business if I did… but, no. We’re friends.”

“Your _friend_ has somehow maintained some kind of hope through all this and I don’t even know how that’s possible. Not that I was a very hopeful person, to begin with, but the impending doom of the human race definitely didn’t help matters.”

“Tell me about it.”

“Did her parents love each other growing up, or what? How does someone still have faith that all this shit is going to work out or that we’ll learn how to live through it? That we’ll build some magical community where everyone works together and does their part and we can just forget that dead people roam the Earth?”

Lexa shrugged, looking at Clarke walking ahead of them. “Maybe she’s braver for that, I don’t know. It’s scary to hope. I know it’s something I haven’t had the guts to do in a long time.” Lexa hadn’t fully realized she felt that way until the words spilled out of her mouth, unbidden.

Anya hummed thoughtfully but before she could respond the sound of gunfire ricocheting off the hood of a car a couple feet in front of them had them instinctively sprawling to the ground.

“Clarke!” Lexa yelled, looking around for any sign of blonde hair but there was none. More gunfire ensued and then abruptly stopped only to be quickly followed by a loud scream. “Fuck! This was so stupid. We shouldn’t have been walking so far apart.” Lexa craned her neck over the car, trying to see if she could see the shooter but the town appeared as deserted as ever. Lexa started to make a run for the next piece of cover, wanting to get closer to where Clarke had been walking just seconds ago but Anya reached out and stopped her. Lexa shoved her off roughly, sending her falling against the side of the car with a loud thump, and made a break for it, gun up and ready to fire at any sign of movement. She moved up the street as quickly as she could without being completely reckless, although whoever had been firing at them seemed to have vanished as quickly as they appeared.

She heard someone approaching behind her and whipped around to find Anya, the barrel of Lexa’s rifle pressed against her chest. Anya brushed it aside with her crossbow, glaring at Lexa before jutting her chin up ahead of them, signaling Lexa to continue.

“Where is she? There’s no sign of her anywhere.” Lexa whispered as they reached the spot where Clarke should have been.

“No blood either, so it’s not like she was shot,” Anya replied. “Who the fuck was firing at us?”

“It was coming from the direction of those buildings over there.” Lexa gestured with her rifle to a few stores across the street, further down the block.

“Ok. Where the fuck is blondie then?” Anya asked tightly. As if in answer of her question, the sound of another gunshot disturbed the unsettling silence that had fallen on the town since the previous gunfire had died down, and Lexa’s stomach knotted, knowing full well, that one way or another, they were going to find out where Clarke was very soon. Lexa could only hope that Clarke would still be alive when she and Anya finally got to her.

/ /

Clarke walked ahead of Anya and Lexa, blindly killing any walkers who came towards her. She was far too caught up in her thoughts to think much about her movements, pure reflex acting behind every swing of her ax.

Was she an idiot for thinking that this couldn’t possibly be all there is to life? Was she being naive?

She desperately wanted to tell herself no, that as a species humans had to be strong enough to bounce back from something like this, that even if walkers remained, the human race could learn to contend with them. To rebuild. To learn from all this and actually make things better the next time around.

It was still early, yet. If her grasp on the passing days was correct it had only been about a month and a half since all this started. With time, the remaining survivors could band together… But her mind turned to the survivors her and Lexa had met so far. The man and the woman at the police station who were ready to kill them over a couple of guns. The men who had that woman surrounded on the highway, men who would have committed heinous acts of violence against her had Lexa and her not stepped in. And Clarke couldn’t forget the two men who had murdered Stu and almost raped her before Lexa saved her. They had crossed paths with many others and who knows what would have happened had Lexa and Clarke actually been spotted by them. Maybe everything really was lost. Maybe this was one war the human race couldn’t come back from.

She was behind the cover of a van when she heard gunshots. She instinctively took out her pistol from its holster, looking back worriedly at Lexa and Anya, who appeared to be on the ground, and Clarke’s heart nearly dropped to her stomach at the thought that maybe one of them was hurt and a vivid image of Lexa with blood spilling out of a bullet wound, blood dripping out of her mouth as she tried to croak out her last words, any last words, was what propelled Clarke to peer around the back of the van, her gun at the ready.

A man was standing in the doorway of a store across the street, a little further up the block, still firing towards Lexa and Anya, having not seen Clarke yet. Clarke aimed her gun towards the man and fired three successive shots, the first two flying past the man to shatter the one unbroken window set in the wall behind him, sending him retreating into the store. The last bullet got him in the back of his calf as he turned to run, drawing a yelp of pain from the man as he limped into the safety of the building. Clarke instinctively ran after him, only slowing down when she reached the store. She walked hesitantly inside, her pistol preceding her, as she looked over the contents of the small clothing store. A blood trail led through one of the aisles, stopping at a door in the back. She leaned against the wall to the left of it, turning the knob and pushing the door ajar, only stopping and pulling back when a gunshot tore through the wood two inches away from her outstretched hand.

“I wouldn’t come in here if I were you. Unless you have a death wish.” A shaky voice called out to her. “You fucking shot me.”

“You shot my friends,” Clarke replied, trying to hide the way her own voice wanted to shake. And failing miserably.

“Yeah, well, such is the world we live in.”

“It doesn’t have to be.”

The man laughed ruefully. “Maybe I’d believe that if I wasn’t currently bleeding to death. You got a fucking artery, must have, with all this blood. It’s a little hard to tighten a tourniquet with one hand while aiming a gun with another.”

“Then put down the gun.”

The man laughed again. “Hey, maybe I should. You can make my death far quicker and less painful.”

Clarke closed her eyes. She needed to go check on how Anya and Lexa were faring. She had no idea what had propelled her to even follow the man in the first place. Blind rage at the fact that he might have shot Lexa combined with the unsettling notion that he was the first human being she had ever shot? Maybe; it was hard to say when her heart was thudding heavily in her chest and her thoughts were racing at a mile a minute.

Her eyes glanced over at the front of the shop and that’s when she saw Anya and Lexa standing outside the display window. The breath went out of her lungs at the sight of Lexa, alive and looking uninjured. Her mouth broke into a smile, despite the danger of the situation she was in and she saw a mirrored look of relief on Lexa as well. Then she remembered the man who had started all this in the first place was on the other side of the wall and she gestured with her pistol towards the open door. Lexa nodded, understanding immediately, and the next time Clarke looked over she and Anya were gone. She guessed they were trying to find a back door to the store in order to get behind the man.

“Listen, if you put your gun down, I can help you,” Clarke called out towards the open door.

“You’re going to help me from a gunshot wound you caused in the first place?”

“Only after you shot at my friends. Ok? Let’s not pretend like it was exactly unwarranted. I was protecting someone I care about. Surely, you can understand that. Although, maybe not, given the fact that you pass the time by shooting at complete strangers.”

“So then why would you want to help me? Seems like it would be to your benefit to just let me bleed out and die.”

Clarke closed her eyes, taking a deep breath. She didn’t want to reveal to the man that her friends were indeed alive, otherwise, he might suspect they were moving in on him. “Maybe no one has to die today.”

There was silence, and Clarke was almost convinced that maybe the man had died after all until she heard the sound of something sliding along the floor and looked down to see a pistol come to a stop in front of her feet.

Clarke came slowly around the door to find the man sitting with his back pressed against the desk in the center of the room, looking pale and haggard. Blood was pouring out of the wound in his leg and Clarke knew immediately that there wasn’t much she could do for him. He looked to have lost a lot of blood as is.

“That bad, huh?” He asked dryly. “This isn’t how it is in the movies. In the movies, when the hero gets shot in the leg, he just keeps on going, like it's nothing."

“You think you’re the hero, huh?” Clarke heard Lexa’s voice as she entered the room from a separate doorway behind the desk, Anya close behind.

“Don’t we all think we’re the hero?” The man asked.

Lexa had learned long, long ago that in real life, there were no heroes. Just people, paving their way to hell with good intentions. But she wasn’t in the mood to get into a debate on the morality of the human race with the man who had shot at them.

Clarke knelt down next to the man and tightened the tourniquet he had attempted to wrap around his leg, a few inches above the gunshot wound. She shrugged her shoulders in order to get her backpack off and dug through the assortment of stuff before pulling out some gauze.

“What are you doing, Clarke?” Lexa asked, her gun steadily pointed at the man’s head, ready to fire if he so much as laid a finger on Clarke. “You shouldn’t be so close to him.”

Clarke ignored her, instead focusing on placing the gauze over the bleeding hole in the man’s leg and applying as much pressure as she could. The man groaned at the contact.

“Dear god, just let me die.” He croaked.

“Shut up.” Clarke snapped. The gauze was quickly becoming a red soppy mess and Clarke switched it out for a new one. She could see the man’s eyelids flutter and his head droop and she slapped his cheek repeatedly until he finally raised his head and looked drearily at her.

“You have to stay awake.”

“It’s too hard.” He whined.

“The bleeding isn’t slowing down, Clarke,” Lexa said. “There’s nothing you can do for him.”

Clarke increased her pressure on the gauze but the man’s head went slack, his chin against his chest. She slowly raised her fingers and pressed them against his pulse point, letting her hand drop dejectedly when she felt nothing. She looked at his lifeless body for a few taut moments before rising to her feet and walking briskly out the door.

“Why was she so desperate about saving him?” Anya asked. “He shot at us.”

“She’s never killed anyone before,” Lexa answered absentmindedly as she followed after Clarke.

Lexa found her sitting against the side of the building, leaning her forehead against her knees, which were pulled up to her chest. Lexa lowered herself next to Clarke, silently wrapping her arm around the girl. Clarke immediately buried her face in the crook of Lexa’s neck, wrapping her arms so tightly around her that Lexa swayed to the side with the force of her embrace before sitting up straight again. She rubbed Clarke’s back soothingly and let the girl cry into her shoulder, waiting for her to gain her composure enough to speak. After a few minutes, she did.

“I thought you were shot.” Clarke gasped through her sobs, her voice muffled from being buried in Lexa's neck.

Lexa furrowed her eyebrows. “Why did you think that?”

Clarke raised her head from Lexa’s shoulder, removed her hands from Lexa’s side, and sat up straight. “I heard the shots and when I looked back you and Anya were on the ground. And I had this vision-” She stopped suddenly, looking away.

“What, Clarke?” Lexa asked softly.

“I had this vision of you shot, of you dying, and… I didn’t even think. I couldn’t think. I shot the guy and then I followed him… and then I saw you… and you were ok…”

“I’m ok,” Lexa assured. “You’re ok.”

Clarke looked back towards Lexa and her breath nearly caught in her throat at the softness in Lexa’s eyes. “You must think I’m so stupid.”

Lexa shook her head. “Not at all.”

Clarke let out a shaky breath, looking towards the sky, unable to meet Lexa’s gaze. The care she found in it almost made everything worse. “I killed him. I killed a human being today.”

“You did what you had to do to protect yourself and those around you.”

Clarke shook her head with a rueful expression on her face. “Are you proud of me, Lexa? Are you proud that you taught me well?” Clarke asked flatly and Lexa’s jaw tightened, recoiling slightly and Clarke immediately regretted what she said.

“Lex, I’m sorry. I don’t know what came over me. I shouldn’t have said that.” Clarke quickly apologized. Lexa was looking away from her, her face tense.

“You’re under a lot of stress,” Lexa replied in a monotone.

“That’s no excuse. I shouldn’t take it out on you, not when you’re being so nice to me. I’m sorry.”

“I know what it’s like… what you’re going through.” Lexa finally responded. “It’s hard the first time. It’s the hardest thing in the world.”

“And then?”

Lexa paused. “Then it gets easier.”

With a wince, Clarke admitted, “Maybe that’s what I’m scared of.”

“It’s when you stop being scared that you should worry.”

“Are you scared?”

Lexa turned her head to look at Clarke again. “Every day.”

Anya came out of the store, carrying Clarke’s backpack, and stopped when she saw Clarke and Lexa sitting together against the building. “I’m sorry if I’m interrupting something… It was getting to be uncomfortable in there.”

“It’s ok,” Clarke said, getting up and taking her bag from Anya. “Thanks for grabbing my stuff.”

Anya shrugged. “Figured you wouldn’t want to have to go back in there and get it.”

Clarke nodded, her eyes downcast.

“How about we go back to the library?” Lexa asked. She didn’t think Clarke was up for much else today and Lexa wouldn’t complain about spending another day and night in the comfort of the library.

Most of the remaining day was spent in quiet solitude for each of the women. Anya took some mystery book into the back room with her so she could spread out on the couch and read in peace. Lexa chose one of the comfortable chairs in the lounge area to read more poetry, regularly looking up from her book to watch as Clarke aimlessly walked up and down the various aisles, occasionally picking up a book to skim through it before putting it back.

Lexa knew Clarke likely felt much too preoccupied with the thoughts in her head to focus her concentration on a book. She knew that whatever was going through her head must be overwhelming but Lexa’s own experience of what Clarke was going through told her that, at the moment, she needed time to sort out her thoughts and feelings on her own. Clarke would reach out when she was ready and Lexa would be there.

Lexa remembered earlier when she thought Clarke had been shot. Her first feeling had been that of anger, as was common with her. But underneath all that rage, underneath even the sadness that would quickly settle in once that anger dissipated, was emptiness. Nothing. As hard as it was for her to admit, Clarke had coaxed a part of her out that Lexa didn’t even know still existed, a part she thought had died a long time ago. The part that smiled, laughed, goofed around, the part that opened up and let others in… the part that hoped. That hope was a tiny, fragile thing; a small flame that could be snuffed out by a light breeze, unless it was tended to. Or maybe Lexa had been reading too much poetry.

She knew if Clarke had died, she would go right back to the way she was before she met her. Or maybe down spiral even worse. She didn’t know what scared her more: the fact that Clarke had such an effect on her or the fact that she was scared of the mere idea of going back to not caring about anything other than survival when that used to be her way of life.

When she looked up, Clarke was walking towards her. “More poetry?”

Lexa nodded, watching over the top of her book as Clarke collapsed onto the couch, leaning her head back against the top of the cushion and sighing.

“I read more TS Eliot last night when you went to bed.”

“What did you think?”

“I think he was scared of life. But maybe he didn’t want to be. A lot of his poems have this yearning quality to them that just makes me sad.” She sat up straighter on the couch. “He… He had an eye for things, for all the small things that make up life but it’s like he couldn’t handle life as a whole. Or maybe I’m just projecting.”

“The best poetry tells the truth otherwise it’s just lies dressed up nicely.”

“I don’t even know his name,” Clarke said suddenly.

Lexa raised her eyebrows, waiting for Clarke to continue.

“I don’t even know the name of the man I killed.”

Lexa didn’t know the names of any of the people she killed… except two.

“Would it have been better if you had?”

Clarke was silent for a moment, her eyes jumping from one spot to the next as if she feared lingering on something too long. “I don’t know. Probably not.”

“You saved two lives by doing what you did.”

“He probably wouldn’t have killed you or Anya.”

“Maybe not but he could’ve. And even if he didn’t, maybe he’d go on to kill other people.”

“That’s how you rationalize it?”

“That’s how you have to rationalize it, otherwise you’d go mad.”

Clarke bit her thumbnail.

“You just need time, Clarke. You’re picking at a fresh wound right now.”

Clarke nodded as she got up to continue her aimless wandering through the library.

Lexa continued watching her between lines of poetry before closing her book with a sigh and walking over to Clarke, who was currently standing in front of a section of books, still working on her thumbnail. When Lexa looked over the spines of the books in front of them, she noticed the titles all had something to do with morality and ethics.

“What are you looking for, Clarke? Because something tells me whatever it is, you’re not going to find it in the pages of some academic book likely written by someone who’s never been in a life-threatening situation. The people who wrote these books couldn't have predicted that something like this would happen. They wrote them in the safety of their homes within a society guided by a specific set of rules. None of which apply anymore.”

“I know,” Clarke whispered.

“You didn’t do anything wrong, Clarke. I know it’s hard to believe that… but you were only acting in self-defense. Even by society's standards, you didn't do anything wrong. Do you think I’m an evil person for killing those men who were going to rape that woman? Or for killing those people at the police station? Or the men who were going to rape you?”

Clarke shook her head.

“Why?”

“You know why.”

“I want to hear you say it, Clarke.”

Clarke sighed. “Because you did what you did to save the life of yourself and others. I know that… And, I think you’re a hero for it.”

“I don’t know about that last part,” Lexa replied softly. “I don’t think there are any heroes.”

“Well, you’re my hero.” Clarke clarified with a shy smile that Lexa couldn’t help but return. Nor could she help the growing warmth in her chest at Clarke’s words. That didn’t stop her from rolling her eyes, however.

“That was cheesy, Clarke.”

“Shut up,” Clarke said lightly.

“But if you think I’m a hero for doing what I did, then you’re a hero too.”

“I don’t think I’ll ever be ok with killing someone else.”

“And you don’t have to be. I’m not. But sometimes it’s necessary. Sometimes you have no choice. And you do whatever you need to deal with that choice… but you have to deal with it, otherwise, it’ll swallow you whole and you’ll never survive under the weight of it.”

“How do you deal with it?”

Lexa’s jaw clenched, her eyes focussed on a book in front of her. “I used to write the number in a journal. In the beginning. Then, it became too hard, when the number got too big. So I stopped. And eventually… it just became normal for me. That’s not to say I sleep easily, though. Although, I guess I wouldn’t have to tell you that. I’ve probably woken you enough times with my nightmares.”

“Has it gotten any easier for you?”

Lexa lifted one shoulder in a half-shrug. “Compared to how I used to be… yeah, I guess you could say it has. It’s trite but you have to take it one day at a time.”

“And you called me cheesy.”

Lexa smirked, rolling her eyes again.

A loud curse coming from the back room had them jerking their heads in the direction of the sound before running towards its source, pistols drawn.

Lexa opened the door to find Anya standing with her back to them, pants and underwear down, her bare ass on full display.

“Oh, shit.” Lexa immediately turned around to leave, effectively hitting her head against Clarke’s, who was right behind her.

“What the hell, Lex?” Clarke cried out, rubbing her forehead and stepping around Lexa and into the room.

Anya had whipped around at the sound, tripping over the pants pulled down to her ankles and sprawling face first onto the floor with a grunt. “Get the fuck out!” She yelled. Clarke did an about-face, shoving a laughing Lexa out of the room and closing the door behind them.

Clarke held back her own laughter for about five seconds before she was doubling over along with Lexa.

A few moments later the door opened and a seething Anya walked through, her arms crossed over her chest as she surveyed the laughing women in front of her.

“Honestly, Anya. I have to thank you. I really needed the laugh.” Clarke said through interspersed giggles.

Anya remained unamused.

“Seriously, what were you doing?” Lexa asked.

“I was changing my clothes and I realized I’m on my period,” Anya grumbled reluctantly. “Apparently some people haven’t been introduced to the concept of knocking.”

Lexa narrowed her eyes. “We thought something was wrong. You should be thankful we rushed so quickly to defend you.”

“Thank you but unless you can defend against debilitating period cramps and general crappiness, that’s no help to me.”

“I do have some aspirin.” Clarke offered and Anya’s eyes softened ever so slightly. “But I did forget to pick up pads or tampons. Maybe we should head back out and pick up a couple boxes.”

“I can do it.” Lexa offered.

“No, Lex, I’ll go with you.”

Lexa gave Clarke a small smile, which Clarke immediately returned.

Anya looked at the two women and rolled her eyes. “Ok, well, whenever you two are done eye-fucking, I guess. Hopefully within this century.”

That quip earned her a punch in the shoulder from Lexa.

“I am on my period. You do not want to mess with me.” Anya spat.

Lexa raised her eyebrows in a challenge. “Oh yeah?”

Clarke could only watch aghast as the two began wrestling in earnest, like a couple of children. It wasn’t long before they were on the floor, Lexa pinning a struggling Anya against the ground.

“Fucking hell. Do I even want to know how you acquired so much upper arm strength?” Anya asked. “I’m sure Clarke could tell me.”

Clarke blushed at Anya’s implication. “Guys, stop it! You're adults!”

But the two women paid her no mind, continuing to tussle around on the floor. Finally, with a frustrated groan, Clarke, making a gamble, began tickling Lexa’s side. Lexa immediately tensed up before letting out a series of almost childish giggles that only spurred Clarke on, forgetting her original goal of bringing Anya and Lexa out of their wrestling match in favor of tickling Lexa more aggressively, causing the girl to spasm before collapsing onto Anya, who let out a wheezing breath at the pressure on her stomach. When Lexa rolled off the woman and onto her back, she was greeted with yet more probing fingers on her side, as Clarke knelt beside her in order to have more leverage against the hands struggling to fight her off, as Lexa swore at her and begged for mercy between shrieks of laughter. Clarke couldn’t believe that this normally serious, stoic soldier was being reduced to this puddly mess and made a mental note that tickling was her weakness. Only to an extent, however, because seconds later, before Clarke could even register that Lexa had moved, she felt a weight slam into her side, pushing her down onto the floor with an “oof”, and settling over her, effectively trapping her. When she looked up Lexa’s face was hovering over her own, a mischievous glint in green eyes, an even more devious smirk playing on full lips. But Clarke didn’t have long to take pleasure in the fact that Lexa was braced over her, in a position Clarke might have dreamed about one or two or six times because soon fingers were tickling at her side and the unbearable sensation they elicited eclipsed all other thought processes. All her energy went towards trying to get Lexa off her in order to stop her ministrations, but Lexa was relentless in her objective to enact revenge on Clarke for her own indiscretion. Clarke started jerking uncontrollably as the tickling became more and more unbearable, and she tried to twist her body around in an attempt to dislodge Lexa, only succeeding in inadvertently driving an elbow in Lexa’s face.

Lexa fell off Clarke with a yelp of pain, and Clarke, having felt her elbow connect with something hard immediately turned to see Lexa on her back, grasping her eye with both hands, a grimace on her face.

“Lexa! I’m so sorry! Oh my god, oh, my god. I’m so sorry. That was an accident. Oh my god.” Clarke’s hands first went to her mouth in surprise before reaching out to touch Lexa’s arm. Lexa instinctively rolled away from her.

Anya watched all this with an amused expression. “I got to say. That is not how I expected that to end.”

Clarke shot a glare at her. “Enough with the innuendos. That’s what caused this mess in the first place.”

“Yeah, sure, blondie. Blame me for you punching out your girlfriend.”

“Maybe I’ll punch you out next if you don’t-” Clarke snapped before being interrupted by an amused laugh coming from Lexa. Clarke immediately turned to her, her face softening in concern. “I’m so sorry, Lexa. Why are you laughing?”

“Because this is the second time I’ve been hit by you,” Lexa answered. “I’m starting to think you never really needed my help, to begin with.”

“She’s hit you before? Jesus, is this like a domestic violence thing? Because I’m not sure what the protocol is for that in the apocalypse.”

Lexa guffawed.

“I didn’t hit her. I mean I did but she wanted me to.”

Anya raised her eyebrows. “I never would have guessed you two would be into that sort of thing.”

Clarke groaned, burying her face in her hands in embarrassment. This was a mess. “No, not like that. She was teaching me to fight. And for the last time, we’re not a couple.”

“Something tells me that’s not going to be the last time you’re going to have to tell her.” Lexa counters.

“Lexa, I’m so sorry.”

“Clarke, don’t worry about it. It was an accident.”

Clarke gasped when Lexa finally pulled her hand away from her face and got a clear look at the bruise already starting to form around her eye. “Lexa! I gave you a black eye!”

Anya snorted. “Damn, blondie, you gave her quite a shiner. Remind me to never tickle you.”

Lexa smirked. “Yeah, that’s the last time I’m trying that, that’s for sure.”

Clarke still had her mouth open, a mixture of surprise, concern, and guilt clouding her expression.

“Are you going to look at me like that for the rest of the day or…?”

“I feel so bad.”

Lexa shook her head with a slight smile. “Don’t worry about it. C’mon. We gotta go to the drugstore for Anya. Are you still coming with?”

Clarke got to her feet, still looking ashamed.

“Good, I wouldn’t feel as safe without you, Rocky.” Lexa teased.

Clarke rolled her eyes. When Clarke bent her arm to straighten out her shirt, Lexa pretended to shrink away from her outstretched elbow in fear, letting out a chuckle at Clarke’s upset expression, nudging her with her shoulder in an attempt to brighten her spirits.

“I couldn’t pass that up, I’m sorry.”

“I do deserve it.” Clarke pointed out.

“Maybe blondie will feel better if you elbow her in the face, Lexa. Then it’ll be even.” Anya suggested.

Lexa glared at her. “Careful, Anya. Or we might not come back with any pads or tampons.”

“Fine. I have no problem bleeding over everything you own.”

Lexa wrinkled her nose in disgust. “That is a god awful mental image you’re leaving me with.”

“I don’t know, Lex. We did see her bare ass.” Clarke replied and Lexa laughed. She was just happy to see Clarke no longer sulking.

Anya flipped them both off as they walked out the door. Lexa wondered at what point she had let her guard down around Anya and then decided it didn’t even matter. What mattered was that she was currently walking beside someone who, against all odds, she had grown to care about, after years of not caring about anyone, to get something for the new friend both she and Clarke had made, and as stubborn as she was, Lexa wasn’t stubborn enough to ignore the growing feeling inside her for what it was: happiness. And, maybe, just maybe, a little bit of hope.

 

 


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clarke, Lexa, and Anya face consequences for the events of the last chapter

Clarke felt immensely grateful towards Lexa as Clarke rather doubted her ability to cope with the fact that earlier today she had taken the life of another human being. But Lexa grounded her, kept her thoughts from leading her down dangerous paths that were all too hard to walk away from. Those thoughts couldn’t be staved off forever but at least right now, she had a moment of peace as she and Lexa walked down the street towards the drugstore. Although, Clarke still cringed each time she glanced over at her companion and saw the bruise forming around her eye, where Clarke had unwittingly clocked her with her elbow. 

“Does it hurt?” Clarke asked regretfully. 

Lexa, who appeared otherwise occupied with thoughts of her own, tilted her head towards Clarke with a quizzical look on her face: eyebrows raised slightly in a silent question. Clarke found it all too endearing, causing her to temporarily forget her question.

“Clarke? Did you say something?” Lexa spoke up after a beat.

“Your eye, does it hurt?” 

“It’s tender right now,” Lexa admitted. “But it’ll heal in no time. It’s not the first black eye I’ve ever gotten, Clarke. And the others were given to me under far less pleasant circumstances, so I guess you could say that this was the best black eye I’ve ever received.” Lexa meant it as a lighthearted assurance, but she could tell by the stricken expression on Clarke’s face that it had only made things worse.

Before anything else could be said, however, just as they were turning the corner onto the street on which they had run into the man Clarke had shot, Lexa spotted a group of people exiting the store that had become said man’s final resting place. Six men and two women, all armed. Lexa pushed Clarke back against the wall of the bank that resided on the corner of the intersection, ensuring they were both out of sight. 

Clarke, upon seeing the way Lexa’s body tensed up and the way she held her rifle more purposefully, took her pistol out of its holster and looked at Lexa questionably, wondering what she had seen on the next block that switched her so quickly into fight mode. 

“The man we ran into today might not have been alone,” Lexa said in an even voice.

Clarke’s eyes widened and she moved forward in order to get her own look, only to be stopped by Lexa’s outstretched arm and a warning stare.

“Six people, armed, outside the store we left him in.”

“How can you be sure they were with him?”

Lexa leveled a pointed look at Clarke. “Eight people just happen to show up a few hours after you kill a man in a clothing store that they’re all congregated around?”

Clarke winced at Lexa’s blunt language and her stomach drops at the notion that the man wasn’t a lone survivor; that he had people who cared about him, maybe even loved him, people who must have been devastated at the sight of his lifeless body abandoned in the lonely back office of some small town boutique. 

Clarke and Lexa could hear voices travelling up the street. A woman’s voice ordering people to head in various directions, urging them to be on their guard, and not to come back until they’ve cleared every building in the town. Other voices dutifully agreeing to the woman’s instructions.

“We’re getting out of here,” Lexa announces, wrapping her hand around Clarke’s elbow and pushing her towards the direction they had come in. “I’m not sticking around this town any longer, so I can be the target of those people’s blind vengeance for the death of some asshole.”

“What about Anya?”

Lexa had temporarily forgotten about Anya, her mind solely focussed on getting her and Clarke out of here. For a moment, she contemplated simply leaving her behind to fend for herself, wondering if the time they took to detour back to the library, and somehow convince Anya to leave what had been her home for the last two weeks, would be enough for the people behind her and Clarke to catch up. She felt a pang of nostalgia for the times when she was on her own, responsible for no one but herself. If she had been alone right now, it would be all too easy for her to slip her way out of town, without anyone being aware of the fact that she had been there in the first place. 

Then, blue eyes were boring into her green ones, pulling her away from her thoughts, and somehow Clarke’s hand had become intertwined with her own as they continued their brisk walk down the sidewalk. Lexa heard the sound of voices getting louder as they came around the corner and instinctively used her shoulder to push Clarke towards the entrance of the bar they were passing. Clarke opened the door and they disappeared inside just as the two men turned onto the block.

Inside, each surface layered with a coat of dust, was a large room with the bar to the right and tables bordering a small dance floor set in front of a stage with an ensemble of instruments for live performances. Given the obscurity of the town, they were in, performers were likely musically inclined residents who fancied playing rockstars Friday and Saturday nights to offset their regular jobs as insurance agents and bank tellers. Lexa led Clarke towards the corner of the room near the bar, where a hallway branched off. Lexa kicked open each door of the hallway, revealing a dingy two-stall bathroom, a small, disorganized office, and finally an only marginally bigger storage area. 

Lexa made a beeline for the door she spotted at the end of the latter room, pulling Clarke along by their still connected hands. She silently prayed to a god she didn’t even believe in that this door led outside, and sure enough, when she opened it, revealing a side alley littered with broken bottles and fast food wrappers, she nearly sighed in relief.

Clarke closed the door behind them just as, on the opposite side of the building, the two men stepped into the front of the bar. Lexa finally let go of Clarke’s hand now that they were outside, wanting her and Clarke to have their hands free in case they ran into someone.

“We have to find our way back to the library,” Clarke said quietly as she and Lexa cut to the left.

Lexa nodded, knowing leaving Anya behind to face these people alone was simply not an option. Maybe it was her military training, or maybe it was her experience growing up in foster homes in which her and her foster siblings only survived the abuse and neglect inflicted on them by callous foster parents through sticking together and looking out for one another; either way, despite her tendency to keep to herself, she had never been one to sit back and do nothing when someone needed help, even if it would be easier if she was. 

Three walkers milled around the mouth of the alley, automatically turning to Clarke and Lexa as they approached. With only a shared glance and the jut of Lexa’s chin in a slight nod, Clarke swung her ax in a brisk arc, the blade lodging itself in the rightmost walker’s head, as Lexa unsheathed her knife and swiftly decapitated the walker on the left, kicking the legs of the middle walker out from under it when it started moving towards Clarke. The blade of the ax split the walker’s face in two just as it hit the ground on its back. When Clarke looked up, a light dancing in her blue eyes, it was to the sight of Lexa smirking appreciatively at her. The moment didn’t last long; it couldn’t, not while they were desperately trying to evade the people surely closing in on them, but it was long enough for both Clarke and Lexa to silently admire how well they were beginning to fight together. Then, they were continuing their hurried retreat down the alley.

The alley let out on another street parallel to the one they had been on before ducking into the bar. Lexa knew the library was down the street to their left and hopefully, they’d be able to enter it from the back, saving them the trouble of having to circle around to the front entrance, which might be occupied by the other people searching the town by now. 

When Lexa and Clarke peered around the corner of the building bordering the alley, however, they saw a man and a woman walking down the opposite sidewalk. They waited as the pair took down a small group of walkers before entering one of the residential homes that lined the block. They took the opportunity to sprint out of the alley and down the street. Luckily, the library was only three storefronts down and there  _ was  _ a back door. 

Their luck ended there, however, because it was locked. Admittedly, they  _ could  _ shoot the lock but that would give away their position. Lexa tried slamming her body against the door in an attempt to break down the door but it hardly budged in its frame. 

While Lexa was probably throwing her shoulder out, Clarke went around the side of the building, spotting a window that, with a little boost, one of them could slide through in order to open the door from the inside and let the other in. Clarke went back to Lexa, grabbing her arm and pulling her silently towards her discovery. Lexa immediately crouched down, holding out her hands and looking up at Clarke in an implicit order for her to use them as the boost. Clarke stepped into the cup of her palm, bracing herself as Lexa slowly pushed her up until Clarke could shove the window open, and pull herself through and onto the small ledge on the other side. 

The room was probably half the size of the main library space and seemed to serve as a dumping ground for a conglomeration of junk: old furniture, boxes stacked upon one another, and broken bookcases that surely made navigating the space feel like going through a life-size maze.

About two or three feet below the ledge Clarke found herself perched on, stood one of the bookcases. She carefully lowered herself down, clutching desperately to the edge of the ledge when the bookcase began wobbling a little under her weight. Finally, it stilled and Clarke was able to jump the five feet down to the ground, falling over on her side in a heap. 

She heard gunfire coming from outside and got to her feet as quickly as possible and ran to the door. She slid back the deadbolt and yanked the door open with her pistol drawn from its holster, clicking the safety off in preparation for whatever hell was waiting for her outside. Lexa stood in front of the door, with her back to Clarke as she fired her rifle.

The man and the woman had come out of the house and their eyes had immediately lighted upon Lexa standing near the back door of the library across the street from where they stood. She had been watching the street anxiously for any sign of movement and at the sight of the couple emerging from the house, she fired her rifle, delivering a series of shots to the man, who jerked sporadically at the force of the bullets ripping through him before collapsing to the ground. As she adjusted her aim to center on the woman, who had instinctively dropped to the ground, Lexa heard the door click open but before she could so much as step back towards the library, she felt a hand grab at the collar of her shirt and yank her roughly backwards, sending her sprawling into the room, before closing the door behind her, and sliding the deadbolt across once again. Lexa looked up from her position on the floor to see a wide-eyed Clarke standing above her. 

“We probably don’t have much time. They sound of the gunfire will lead them to this building any second.” Clarke said, grabbing Lexa’s hand to help pull her up. “Are you ok? Were you shot?” Her eyes quickly surveyed Lexa’s body, looking for any sign of injury before meeting Lexa’s eyes again, flitting nervously between them.

“I’m fine. Let’s go.” 

Clarke and Lexa ran through the maze of junk, stopping short at the sight of the door in front of them shoving open. A pissed off looking Anya, with her crossbow loaded and ready to shoot at the slightest provocation, stepped into the room.

“Clarke? Lexa? What the fuck is going on? I heard shooting.” Anya asked, lowering her crossbow.

“No time to explain; we have to go.  _ NOW _ .” Lexa yelled and as if to illustrate her point further, they heard the sound of a bullet against metal and then a crash as whoever it was kicked the back door open.

Anya’s eyes widened and she turned towards the doorway she had just walked through, which led to the back office, stopping short at the sight of two men walking into the room, their rifles held out in front of them. 

“Drop your weapons. Right now! Or my partner and I will put a bullet through all three of you.” The first man demanded.

“Me too. Gladly.” A woman’s voice added from behind them. She had her pistol aimed right at Lexa, ignoring Clarke and Anya completely. “This bitch killed Dave. Right in front me.” 

The two men reacted viscerally to the news and Lexa watched as the fingers of the man who hadn’t yet spoken moved to the trigger of his gun.

“Stop! Ontari said she wanted them alive.” The first man chided.

The second man made a scoffing noise. “Fuck Ontari. These bitches killed two of our own.”

The first man’s jaw tensed. “Careful. Disobeying Ontari is disobeying Nia. Now, you three, drop your fucking weapons in the next ten seconds or I won’t stop my friend here from putting so many holes in your body, your own mother wouldn’t even recognize you.” 

Clarke’s heart raced in her chest and panic threatened to make any rational thought impossible, but still, she looked to Lexa for an indication of what she should do. Her heart sank into her stomach at the sight of Lexa pulling the strap of her rifle over her shoulder and letting the gun fall to the floor, her jaw tensed and looking so steadily at the man, Clarke was surprised he didn’t have holes burning into him at the sheer force of her glare. Lexa broke her gaze to look at Clarke, widening her eyes slightly in a silent urge to do as the man said. She only continued glaring at the man when Clarke let her pistol fall to the ground. Now, it was just Anya left with her crossbow aiming at the first man, then the second and finally to the woman flanking them. After a few seconds, upon realizing she truly was bested, she dropped her weapon as well. 

It wasn’t but five seconds after, that Clarke felt the butt of a gun driven into her head and everything went black. 

 

/  /

 

When Clarke regained consciousness, with an unsettling feeling of deja vu, she was sitting in a chair, multiple ropes tied around her midsection keeping her propped up. She could feel more ropes digging into her wrists and her ankles and she couldn’t help the groans that spilled out of her mouth, partly due to the throbbing pain in her head and the danger of the situation she has found herself in. Looking to either side of her, she saw that Anya and Lexa were similarly tied up, still knocked out. They appeared to be lined up along the middle of an RV. 

Lexa was the second to wake after Clarke. As soon as her eyes opened and she registered the ropes restraining her, she thrashed forward, pulling her hands in opposite directions in an attempt to free them, and when the ropes didn’t give, she looked around frantically, trying to see if there was something, anything, near her that could be of some use to her.

“Lexa.” 

The sound of Clarke’s voice seemed to finally clue her in that she wasn’t alone. She looked across a still passed out Anya towards a scared looking Clarke.

“I’m going to get us out of this,” Lexa stated. 

Clarke grimaced. She had faith in Lexa, had seen enough of her in action the last three weeks to know she was tenacious, resourceful, and scrappy, among many other things that had bode well for them both but this… Clarke wasn’t sure any of that could help them here.

“They made a mistake, Clarke.” Lexa continued.

Clarke’s face brightened. Did Clarke miss something? Did they not tie Lexa down correctly? Is there something in this room that Lexa’s highly trained mind spotted that could help them, something Clarke looked over? She looked at Lexa hopefully, waiting for her to clue her in. Lexa had a ruthless smirk on her face, a smile that didn’t reach her eyes in the slightest. The determined, smug look on her face made Clarke feel ridiculous for ever doubting Lexa in the first place. 

“They made a mistake when they didn’t shoot us back at the library. Taking us alive...” Lexa shook her head and whistled. “I’m going to make them regret it for the rest of their lives. Which, admittedly, won’t be very long.”

Clarke’s shoulders slumped dejectedly. Ok, so no, there wasn’t anything Clarke missed. Except, maybe, Lexa’s pride. 

A series of groans alerted them that Anya was waking. Anya’s eyes opened and she took a silent moment to look around herself before sighing heavily.

“Fan-fucking-tastic.” 

“Sleep well?” Lexa asked in a falsely sweet tone.

“Do me a favor and don’t talk to me.”

“Gladly.” Lexa spat through her teeth.

Clarke leaned forward (as much as she could anyway) to look at them both. “Now is not the time for bickering, ok?” Trying to borrow from Lexa’s confidence that they can get out of this mess, she continued, “If we stick together, maybe we can get out of this.”

“Blondie, it’s because of you two that I’m in this mess in the first place.”

Clarke’s jaw fell open in shock. “Excuse me? And how do you figure that?”

“By the simple logic that if I had never met either one of you, I would be peacefully asleep on the library couch at the moment.”

Lexa snorted, her lips quirking up in amusement. 

“What’s so funny?” Anya demanded, glaring at Lexa, who returned her malice with one piercing, sidelong glance. 

“This is just quite the wake-up call, isn’t it?”

“Wake up call for what?” Anya asked, deciding to take the bait after a moment of deliberation. 

“That you can only sleep your way through difficult situations for so long before the shit hits the fan so hard the fan is obliterated and you actually have to get up and  _ do  _ something for a change. In short, you’re a coward.”

“Oh, you are so lucky I’m tied up right now,” Anya growled.

“Guys! Stop it!” Clarke cried out. “Seriously. This is not the time for some stupid pissing contest. We need to put our heads together and figure a way out this. Otherwise, we’ll die here.”

The realization hit home for Clarke that, yes, this RV could be the last place she ever sees. That this could be it for her. She wasn’t sure what one was supposed to feel in a situation like this; if she was supposed to see her life flashing before her eyes, or list in her head all the things she wouldn’t get to see again. And she did start to do both those things, half-heartedly, before giving up the ghost. Everything just seemed flat to her. 

“Anya’s right,” Clarke said. “This is my fault. I’m the one who killed the man. If I hadn’t done that, we wouldn’t be here.”

Lexa redirected her glare towards Clarke. “That’s a weak argument and you know it. He shot at us and you protected us.”

Clarke shrugged. “Maybe. But the reason we were out there in the first place was because I insisted I needed a walk. If we had stayed in the library, maybe…”

“Enough, Clarke.” Lexa interrupted harshly. “We simply don’t have time for this weakness. If, if, if. If I learned nothing else from serving in the Marines, at least I learned that you can piss away your whole life wondering how differently things would have played out if this or if that, and maybe that sort of wishy-washy bullshit can slide when your biggest worry is your shit job or your crappy spouse, but when you’re in war, that sort of thinking only gets you killed. We’re here, right now, and you can spend your time wondering why it is we’re in this situation or you can spend your time trying to get out of it. It’s up to you, Clarke.”

“That was very motivational. Were you ever on Oprah?” Anya asked. 

“Shut up, Anya,” Clarke muttered, ignoring the way Lexa’s lips twitched slightly as if she was fighting off a smile. 

The door to the RV rattled as someone opened it and all three women glanced towards the door, watching as a dark-haired woman, not much older than Clarke or Lexa, entered the RV, flanked by a tall man with long, shoulder-length hair. He stayed near the door while the woman walked steadily forward until she was standing across from her three captives, her arms crossed over her chest as she carefully surveyed each woman before her.

“So.” She began. “Ground rules. You do not talk unless I ask you a question. When I ask you a question, you give me a straightforward answer and immediately shut up. I do not care about your painful backstory, or how many people you’ve lost. I do not and will not sympathize with you so you can save your breath. You’re greatly outnumbered so any attempt to escape will only end in your death, and believe me when I say, it will not be quick, and it will not be painless.” She took a breath and offered them a humorless smile. “Now that that’s out of the way, let’s begin.”

Lexa stared steadily at the woman as she talked, not fazed in the least by her pathetic scare tactics. She got the immediate sense that this woman believed herself far more important than she actually was and Lexa looked forward to the moment when she could bring her down a notch or two. Before putting an end to her pathetic existence, that is. 

“I’m Ontari. I’m who the people of this camp answer to, second only to my mother, Nia.” She announced with an air of smugness. 

Just as Lexa thought. She fought the urge to roll her eyes. 

“We’ve fought tooth and nail to establish our camp as a safe place to live in. People trust us with their lives; they rely on us to protect them. Without my mother, myself, and my brother, Roan,” Ontari paused to gesture towards the man by the door, “Everyone here would likely be dead. They just don’t have what it takes to survive on their own, without someone there to tell them what to do.”

Lexa really wished she would just get on with her little spiel. She struggled to fight a yawn.

“So it’s a fair trade really. They get a safe place to sleep at night, food to eat, and eventually, we will upgrade to a town as the set up we have now is pretty rudimentary, I have to say. All they have to do is remain loyal to my mother. It’s not like they really have a choice.” She paused, seeming to evaluate something.

“ _ But _ the only way my mother can lead is if she keeps the people safe.” Ontari explains, almost disdainfully. “And the people don’t seem to understand that sometimes, sacrifices need to be made. People die, accidents happen. But they don’t want to hear that; they don’t want to be taught the harsh reality of the new world. They want to hold on to the old one. But what the people really want, above everything else, is order. Justice. They want the comfort of routine. They want to rest easy knowing there is a system in place that can handle any kink in the machinery. And who are we to deny the people what they want?”

Lexa was having a hard time holding her tongue any longer, but luckily Anya spoke up.

“That’s great, lady, but what does all that have to do with us?”

Ontari frowned, seemingly displeased at her monologue being interrupted. Lexa desperately wanted to ask her how long she had spent preparing it. But she knew that wouldn’t be wise. 

“I was getting to that.” She answered, an edge to her voice. “So we developed a system that ensured order over chaos, justice over anarchy. Although it might seem a little unusual by modern standards, the people seemed to accept that some parts of the old world simply can’t work anymore. That some changes must be made. There are rules and harsh consequences if you don’t follow them. Now, you have murdered two of my people. And under our customs, murder is punishable by something we like to call ‘death by a thousand cuts’.”

Lexa thought that the name needed some work. It didn’t leave much to the imagination. 

“It’s pretty self-explanatory I suppose but let me explain it to you anyway to ensure there is no confusion.”

Lexa also thought Ontari would never pass up the opportunity to explain something; she wouldn’t want to miss out on the feeling of superiority it likely gave her. 

“We tie the murderer to a post set up in the center of the camp and one by one each member of our camp cuts them until the number of cuts reaches a thousand. It always begins with the loved ones of the deceased and ends with my mother delivering the fatal cut along the neck.”

Clarke’s face contorts in horror. “That’s sick. I refuse to believe that anyone would ever partake in something like that!”

Ontari smiled, looking pleased with the outburst as if that was the exact reaction she had been hoping for. “You would be surprised. It seems like humans have always had this latent thirst for blood. If you paid attention during history class, you’d know that. Gladiator fights in Rome. Bullfighting in Spain. Throughout all of Europe, really, public deaths were used as a form of entertainment as much as they were used for capital punishment for crime. Nowadays we have football and boxing and MMA, or… we  _ did _ , and while it might have been less brutal than the entertainment of our ancestors, it’s intended effect was the same. It appeals to our basest natures, the primal, animal, part of us. So, no, it wasn’t hard at all to get our people to participate in our form of capital punishment or the other, non-lethal, forms of punishments we have for lesser crimes.”

Clarke could only gape at Ontari, not wanting to believe her claim that it is in humans’ nature to be violent, but if the past three weeks taught her anything, it was: now that civilization has been stripped away, the laws humans have lived by for centuries now nothing more than meaningless words, now that there is nothing holding them back, people are free to act in any way they please… and all too often that has been to hurt and take advantage of others. 

“The pressure for justice is only increased by the fact that our people were murdered by outsiders. It’s much easier to put a knife to someone you consider a stranger than someone you used to consider a neighbor.”

“If you’re going to tie us to a post and stab us to death, can you do it sooner rather than later so I don’t have to hear your annoying voice anymore?” Anya asked, her face blank. 

After a tense moment of silence, Ontari laughed. 

“You haven’t heard the best part. See, we’re not unreasonable people. Most other people would have shot you dead on sight and been done with it. The notion that they might be killing someone who’s innocent probably wouldn’t even occur to them. But not us. And that’s why I’m willing to cut you a deal. Now, I already know who killed Dave. That was you.” Ontari pointed to Lexa. “But I don’t know who killed Ronnie. It could be any of you. So, if you tell me who killed Ronnie, that person, and you,” She pointed at Lexa again, “Assuming you didn’t also kill Ronnie, would be punished. Those of you who are innocent will be welcomed into our camp, and you will become one of us.” 

“And if we refuse to join your little cult?” Anya asked.

Ontari laughed, amused. “You have quite the mouth on you, don’t you? But I suppose it’s a fair enough question. By refusing, that would be an insult to Queen Nia, and that’s punishable by death.” 

Clarke rolled her eyes. She couldn’t believe the audacity that these people believed they had a right to reign over other people like this, called themselves  _ Queen _ for God’s sake.

Lexa agreed but remained impassive.

“So our options are death… or death?” Anya clarified.

“No, your options are to reveal who killed Ronnie so she can be properly punished and so the innocent can join our people.”

“See, you don't understand. Because I’d rather die than bow down to this Nia bitch. Or you. God, I’d blow my own brains out if I had to listen to anymore-” A hard slap effectively cut Anya off, knocking her head against the back of her chair and leaving a red mark in the shape of a hand on her cheek. Anya glared seethingly at Ontari, who seemed to struggle to further contain her own anger.

“The only thing I want to hear from you now is the name of the person who killed Ronnie. If I hear anything, and I mean  _ anything,  _ else come out of your mouth I’ll kill you right here.”

Anya glowered at Ontari but remained silent. 

Ontari smiled humorlessly. “Good.” She took a deep breath, maybe to calm herself or maybe just to redirect the conversation. “So, now that you seem to understand the parameters of the deal we are offering you, I’m going to ask you: Who killed Ronnie?” 

She was greeted with silence. Lexa’s stare didn’t waver from Ontari and neither did Anya’s. It was Clarke who looked down at her lap, unable to meet the cold stare of her captor, as she contemplated the best course of action for her, Lexa, and Anya. Ontari must have noticed Clarke looking down because she stepped forward until she was standing right in front of her. When Clarke looked up, Ontari’s dark eyes were narrowed. 

Ontari grabbed Clarke’s chin roughly, digging her fingers into her skin so hard Clarke wanted to cry out against the pain but she bit her tongue, not wanting to give the woman the satisfaction.

Lexa’s jaw worked at the sight of Ontari grabbing Clarke but she kept her own silence, not letting the rage quickly building up within her cloud her judgment. 

“Tell me who killed Ronnie,” Ontari demanded, digging her fingers in deeper. “Was it you?” At the silence that answered her, she shoved Clarke’s head back before finally disengaging her iron grip on the girl. 

Lexa had been working quietly at the ropes tying her hands the whole time Ontari talked but she worked more determinedly as Ontari yelled at Clarke, still to no avail. Clearly, whoever had tied them up had known what they were doing. 

Ontari walked over to Roan, holding out her hand until he silently placed a familiar looking sheathed knife into her open palm. Ontari walked back to Clarke with the knife held before her.

“We found this on your friend over there. It’s a really nice knife. It’s big but it’s not too big that it’s cumbersome; that’s what I like about it. It’s sharp, effective but it doesn’t overstate itself. I think I’m going to keep it for myself. I quite like the look of it on my belt.” Ontari slid the knife out of its sheath. “Where did you find it?” She directed this question to Lexa, although she was still standing in front of Clarke. At Lexa’s pointed silence, Ontari smiled, “Not much of a talker, are you? That’s ok. Your friend here will do plenty of talking soon enough.”

Ontari held the blade of the knife against the corner of Clarke’s eye, gradually applying more pressure, and that was when Lexa decided she couldn’t hold her silence anymore, that these ropes weren’t giving no matter how hard she worked them and keeping quiet will only result in Clarke getting needlessly hurt by some bitch on a power trip. 

“I killed Ronnie,” Lexa announced, making Ontari release the pressure of the knife, more in shock at the sudden admission from the last person she had expected to crack than anything else. “I killed Ronnie and I killed Dave. Does that mean I get ‘death by two thousand cuts’ or is it not cumulative?”

Lexa only broke the glare she was levelling at Ontari to glance at Clarke, silently imploring her to play along. Maybe, just maybe, they had a chance. Lexa was doomed already because of Dave; if she took the fall for Ronnie so Clarke didn’t have to, maybe Clarke could get them out of this, hopefully with the help of Anya, assuming Clarke could convince her to stop being such a pain in the ass. Lexa realized suddenly she was essentially placing her life in Clarke’s hands and while she told herself it was simply because she had no other choice, she knew that wasn’t entirely true. She had grown to trust Clarke, for better or worse, and now was Clarke’s chance to prove she had earned that trust. It would be all too easy for Clarke to betray her by letting her die and becoming one of Ontari’s people in order to survive. Even if Clarke chose to try and save her, the odds were stacked heavily against their favor. 

Clarke met Lexa’s eyes briefly, and nodded slightly, understanding that Lexa needed her to go along with the lie that she had been the one to kill Ronnie. As Ontari walked over to speak to Roan, and together they lifted Lexa’s chair and walked her out of the RV, Clarke thought she knew why. If both she and Lexa were tied to some post and sliced one by one by an angry mob of people, they hardly stood a chance with just Anya as their hope to salvation (especially since Anya did not seem very fond of either of them at the moment). But if Lexa was the only one tied to the post, that left her and Anya to figure a way out of this mess. Clarke knew Lexa was placing a lot of trust in her to save them all and Clarke wanted desperately to prove to her that she was right in doing that. The last thing Clarke would be able to stomach is watching Lexa be ruthlessly murdered because of her own failure to save her. The thought of throwing Lexa under the bus in order to save herself didn’t even cross her mind. 


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clarke has to come up with a plan to save Lexa before her time runs out.

Five minutes after Roan and Ontari carried Lexa away, five tense minutes that felt like five years to Clarke, the door to the RV opened and a middle-aged woman strode in, the silver fur shawl she wore draped over her shoulders billowing out behind her. Her face was shrewd, her light gray eyes striking in their utter lack of warmth. Two beefy men flanked each of her sides, both holding rifles at port arms.

“Welcome.” She greeted loftily. “I realize the circumstances under which we are meeting are far from pleasant to you, but in due time this can all be water under the bridge. Hm?”

Clarke did her best to school her face into an impassive expression, thinking it might be in her best interests to play along with whatever charade this woman wanted to play.

“You must be Queen Nia,” Clarke stated.

Nia’s lips upturned in what could only be described as a wolfish smile. “My daughter did a fine job briefing you, I see. And you are?”

“I’m Clarke, this is Anya.” Clarke tipped her head towards Anya, who looked sourly up at Nia.

Nia regarded Anya with faint amusement. “Anya. Are you the one Ontari was telling me about?”

“Aw, she talked about me?” Anya batted her eyelashes, a mocking smile playing on her lips. 

Nia's eyes narrowed. “I see what she means. You might have a little more trouble fitting in here than your friend, but I firmly believe in people’s capacity to learn.”

She nodded to the man on her left and he immediately put down his rifle and removed a small knife from his belt. Clarke's eyes widened and words of protests bubbled in her throat as the man stepped towards Anya. She held her silence when she saw the man step around Anya and cut the ropes holding down her hands. He moved behind Clarke’s chair and she felt the rope digging into her wrist loosen, looking up at the man confusedly as he returned to his position at Nia’s side.

Nia refrained from speaking until Anya and Clarke extricated themselves from the rest of the ropes. Finally, they were unrestrained, although they still remained seated, the two armed men deterring any ideas of escape or, in Anya’s case, murdering the woman standing before them with her own bare hands. 

“We welcome you into our camp, as one of our own. As Ontari surely explained to you.” Nia said. “Tonight, we will hold a funeral pyre for Dave and Ronnie and as members of our camp, you will be expected to attend. Afterward, we will deliver the punishment to your former… associate. You will also be expected to attend… and participate.”

Clarke felt her cheeks flush with the force of the anger that flooded through her at the thought of hurting Lexa at the behest of this monster. Clarke tried to instead focus on the fact that Lexa wasn’t due to be punished until tonight, giving her more time to figure a way out of this mess. 

“Now, if you’ll follow me, I’ll show you our camp.” Nia beckoned her finger in a ‘come here’ gesture and Clarke rose, wanting to get the formalities done away with so she could focus her attention towards a plan. She grabbed Anya’s arm and pulled her up when she seemed reluctant to move. Anya shot her a glare and yanked her arm away, but she followed Clarke when Nia led them outside, the two men taking up the rear. 

Clarke took a moment to appreciate the camp before her, as much as she didn’t want to. They appeared to be in a large field, bordered by trees, a dirt road cutting through the wood on the left. The entirety of the camp was enclosed by larger cars and trucks strategically parked to form a wall. Clarke knew it must have taken them some time to scout for the vehicles, drive them back here, and get them in position. The camp itself was bustling with people. Clarke estimated about a hundred, noting that only a couple dozen of them appeared to be armed. Tents were set up around the grounds, makeshift fire pits were dispersed here and there. The sight of all these people in one space left Clarke speechless. This was the biggest group of people she had seen in weeks, and on the surface everything seemed so… normal. Most of the people wore ragged clothing, dirt caked their faces, and many of them seemed injured in some way, but they were together, a community and Clarke felt a slight pang in her chest at the sight. 

Then her eyes alighted on the center of the camp. Two thick wooden posts were planted firmly in the ground. Lexa stood in the space between, one hand tied to each post, the width of her arms spread taut in a position that looked dreadfully uncomfortable, especially when Clarke thought of how long she would have to be like that. Even so, Lexa stood straight, with her chin held high, and it was that more than anything else that broke Clarke’s heart. Lexa always held herself with so much pride and grace; it was an affront to her very nature to string her up like this for everyone to see. Clarke didn’t want to witness the moment that Lexa’s confidence wavered, because surely it would at some point. Even with all of her strength, and all of her experience, she was still human. Most people didn’t pay her any mind but a few hung around her, occasionally stepping closer as they no doubt taunted her. Lexa kept her gaze focussed straight ahead of her, refusing to even acknowledge the aggressors.

“This is our home, although only temporarily. We are looking to relocate to a town in the hopes of providing our people with a more civilized environment to live in.” Nia said. 

The gall of Nia to talk about being civilized when they had a human being strung up in the center of their camp. The more this woman talked the more Clarke hated her guts. 

“But we’ve done pretty well for ourselves considering, don’t you think?” Nia asked, turning to Clarke with an expectant look on her face.

Clarke gave her a tight smile. “Yes. Very well.”

“Now, I regretfully have to leave you to your own devices. I wish I could give you a proper tour but I have some business to attend to, including the funeral arrangements.” With that, Nia walked stridently away, the two men trailing her. 

Clarke blinked in mild surprise, not expecting to be left alone. She looked at the camp around her, trying to see her surroundings the way Lexa would, in the hopes of spotting something, anything, that might inspire a plan. When her gaze landed on Lexa again, Lexa looked right at her and Clarke felt another painful tug in her chest. She was probably doing a terrible job keeping the longing expression off her face but she didn’t care. Clarke watched for a few seconds as Lexa took a few exaggerated deep breaths before looking expectantly at her and Clarke realized Lexa was telling her to breathe. Was her anxiety really that noticeable even from across the camp or was Lexa just that good at reading her? She dutifully took Lexa’s advice before turning to Anya, who was surveying the camp disdainfully.

Clarke grabbed Anya’s arm, ignoring her mumbled threats as she pulled her back towards the RV until they were standing off to the side of it. She noted that many of the people nearby were looking at them warily and the armed guards downright suspiciously but she chose to ignore them for a second.

“Anya, I know you are pissed at us because you blame us for getting into this mess but I don’t have time for it. Lexa doesn’t have time for it. Even if you blame us for this, you should remember that we did come back for you even though we would probably have gotten away if we hadn’t. So you can be pissed at us all you want but please, please, don’t sit back and let these monsters kill Lexa just because you’re angry. I know you’re better than that. Lexa was wrong to call you a coward. Prove that to her.” Clarke kept her voice at a low whisper, but she put all the force behind her words she could muster. 

Anya’s expression was one of complete impassivity, impossible for Clarke to read. It wasn’t like with Lexa, where Clarke could usually interpret what she was thinking or feeling based on various micro-expressions she had become attuned to. Most times all she had to do in order to get a read on Lexa was look into those green eyes of hers; Lexa could express with her eyes what she couldn’t with words, whether she means to or not. But Clarke couldn’t get a read on Anya’s dark eyes, her blank features. She could only wait agonizingly for Anya to speak in order to figure out what was going through her mind, each second that passed feeling like another nail in Lexa’s coffin.

Finally, after what felt like an eternity to Clarke but was likely only half a minute, Anya sighed. “Fine. I’m in. Do you even have a plan?”

“I think we should try to familiarize ourselves with the camp first. Get a lay of the land, figure out any weak spots. We can split up and pass it off as us trying to assimilate into the camp.”

“Something that I would like to find out is how loyal these people really are to Nia and Ontari,” Anya said thoughtfully. 

Clarke wondered that as well. Surely, there must be people who weren’t happy with how Nia and Ontari ran things. Clarke had a hard time believing that the average person would be ok with their obvious cruelty, despite whatever warped view of humanity Ontari had. 

“Me too but tread carefully, Anya. I get the sense that if questions along those lines fall on the wrong ears, that could mean serious trouble for you.”

Anya waved her hand dismissively and before Clarke could press her on the subject any further one of the armed guards approached them.

“Is everything ok over here?” She asked, switching her distrustful stare from Clarke to Anya and back again.

“Yes, everything is fine.” Clarke assured. “We’re just a little nervous because we’re new here, as you probably know.”

The guard nodded slowly as she digested this information. “I’m sure Queen Nia would want you to fit right in.” 

Clarke didn’t miss the order underlying the woman’s words. She bowed her head respectfully before walking hesitantly towards the camp. In her peripheral vision, she saw Anya going off in her own direction. 

Clarke took one lingering look at Lexa to remind herself what was at stake here before walking more briskly through the camp. Eyes turned to her as she walked by, some with mild indifference, others with wariness, and still others with blatant malice in their stares. The armed guards seemed to patrol the area based on zones, each sentry moving around their specific section without straying. Others seemed relegated to watching the perimeter, ensuring that all walkers who approached the camp were taken down. Clarke watched the people’s treatment of the guards, trying to determine how they felt about the people who were surely the most trusted by Nia. Most times when a guard approached or even walked near someone, their behavior shifted. People who were laughing or talking immediately sobered, often falling completely silent. People who were doing some task idly worked more determinedly under the scrutiny of the guard. As Clarke walked through the assortment of tents, the tension in the air became more palpable and she wondered how these people could live under such an oppressive weight. She felt the unease in the fleeting looks people afforded their surroundings, in the quiet hush of conversation. In her mind, a camp like this should be alive with the sound of people talking and laughing freely, children running and playing, the sounds of  _ life. _ Yes, maybe some of the somberness could be attributed to the fact that they were living in an apocalyptic world, but not all of it. Walkers couldn’t account for the way most of the children sat huddled against their parents, looking downtrodden, or the way people either kept to themselves or to their own little group, not when the camp was relatively safe from walkers. Clarke didn’t miss the multiple people who sat shirtless as someone else tended to the gashes lining their backs. 

“Hey.” A voice called out to her and she looked down to see an older woman who looked to be in her late 60s or early 70s, with a burn scar marring the left half her face, sitting cross-legged on the ground near a small tent. “Are you one of the new ones they brought in?”

Clarke nodded, feeling a bit uneasy. There was no malice in the woman’s tone but it was clear that most of the people here didn’t take well to newcomers, and Clarke had no idea what made the woman call out to her when no one else had.

“Sit down.” The woman invited, patting the spot beside her. 

Clarke debated, wondering if she would be wasting time by talking to this woman, and then deciding maybe she can learn something from her. 

“I’m Clarke.” She introduced as she sat beside the woman.

“Rena.” She replied with a kind smile. “Have you ever played with one of these before?” She asked, holding up the long tube that had been in her lap, made up of woven wood shavings. Before Clarke could answer, Rena continued, “It’s a Chinese finger trap.” She handed it to Clarke, who took it hesitantly. After an expectant look from Rena, Clarke placed each of her index fingers into either end of the hollow tube, remembering the puzzles from her early childhood.

“Your instinct to remove yourself from the trap is to pull as hard as you can. But that only tightens it.” Rena grabbed Clarke’s hands, pulling them apart to demonstrate. “If you push on both sides, however, it widens the gap, allowing you to escape.” Rena pushed Clarke’s hands closer together, and Clarke felt the tube loosen around her fingers, allowing her to remove them. Rena smiled softly at her but her eyes looked urgent.

Clarke knew Rena was trying to tell her something, that she was using the Chinese finger trap as a metaphor of some kind, but Clarke didn’t have time for riddles. If this woman knew of some way to help her and her friends, she needed to hear it in no uncertain terms. 

“Rena, if you know something-” She began softly, but Rena completely overrode her.

 

“I only learned how to cook much later in my life, although if you asked my husband I never really got the hang of it. You wouldn’t believe how many casseroles I burnt. He always had to scrape them off the pan for me and into the trash. I couldn’t stand to do it myself after working so hard at it.” 

Clarke tilted her head confusedly in response to Rena’s sudden rambling until she spotted the guard striding past them on his rounds throughout the camp.

As soon as he was out of earshot the smile that had crept on her face as she talked about her poor culinary skills faded into a grim look. “Look, most of the people here are scared. Of Nia and Ontari, yes, but also the world outside. It’s that more than anything else that has them bending to Nia’s will. It doesn’t help that there are often harsh consequences for doing otherwise. As I’m sure your friend over there has learned.” Rena jutted her chin towards Lexa. Clarke watched aghast as someone spit in her face; Lexa flinched back, her eyes closing briefly, and Clarke could see the tension in her face from over here, but she didn’t react. Clarke felt a soft but firm grip on her wrist and she turned back to Rena. 

“My point is other than the guards and maybe a small collective of people the rest of us only listen to her because we have no other choice. None of us have the guts to stand up to her ourselves; many of us have tried… and they’re no longer with us.”

Clarke gulped. 

“But if a choice were to present itself… most of us wouldn’t choose Nia or Ontari or even Roan. He might be the less evil of the bunch but he still does nothing to challenge his sister or his mother.”

“My mother had her own anger issues. Every day she would be yelling about something. The mail coming late, the market being too crowded, but she mostly yelled about me. I can’t say I never gave her a reason to either.” Rena said with a laugh that abruptly ended as the guard walking near them went on his way.

“You take away the power she holds over the people and Nia is nothing but a cranky hag.” Rena continued. 

“It’s nice to know that people haven’t pledged their loyalty to someone like her, and it definitely makes me feel better about this situation, but how am I supposed to instigate an uprising in under four hours? Especially when most people seem to fear me or hate me.”

Rena shook her head. “You don’t have to instigate an uprising.”

Clarke’s eyebrows furrowed. “Then what are you suggesting?”

“Remember the Chinese finger trap. It’s yours. Now, go, you’ve been sitting here for too long and the guards are getting antsy.”

Clarke barely had time to protest before she was being pushed to her feet by Rena, who promptly disappeared into her tent. 

Clarke looked down at the finger trap, trying to decipher whatever meaning Rena had derived from it. Did she really have to run away like that just before giving Clarke the answers she needed? Looking around, she did note the way the guards kept looking in her direction and she wondered why Nia had let her free in the first place if it put the guards so on edge. Tapping the trap against her hand as she continued walking through the camp, Clarke decided it was the ultimate way for her to prove her power. If Nia could get a stranger who previously ran with someone who killed two of their people to become one of them, could even get the stranger to turn against her companion by participating in her punishment, what couldn’t she do to her very own people? By locking Clarke and Anya up, she would be telling her people she felt threatened by them, undermining her authority. Rena was right; take that away, and Nia is nothing. The only question is how? Clarke was beginning to formulate an answer.

/ / 

Looking around the camp initially, Clarke had spotted a bigger tent near the far right corner, two guards standing outside the entrance. Whatever is in there is worth dedicating two of Nia’s guards to defend. Clarke didn’t care what it was, just that it was clearly important. She filed the information away for later. 

She spotted Anya on the other side of the camp talking to some woman. Clarke rolled her eyes when she saw the way the girl stroked Anya’s forearm as Anya spoke to her, mentally scolding Anya for flirting now of all times. She’s definitely going to give her shit for that the next time she ribs her and Lexa for nothing more than being friendly with one another. Her stomach knots when she realizes it’s all too possible that there won’t _be_ a next time, that if the shell of the plan she’s forming in her mind doesn’t work it’ll end with all three of them dead. She remembers earlier today when Anya and Lexa were wrestling with each other, Lexa’s adorable giggles and gleeful shrieks from being tickled, the playfully devious look on Lexa’s face as she braced herself over Clarke, the moment before she retaliated with her tickles of her own. How could the girl who was bursting out laughing at the sight of a bare-assed Anya tripping over her own pants be tied to two posts like some torture device from the Spanish Inquisition just a few hours later? It wasn’t right. 

Clarke finally approached Anya and the mystery girl, who both turned to face her, the woman looking slightly annoyed at the interruption, and Anya looking blase, as if everything hadn’t fallen apart around them in the span of a couple hours. Now that Clarke had some idea of what she planned to do, she only felt the pressure of their current situation even more. She felt frantic and restless to just get on with it. But it wasn’t time. They still had lots to do. For starters, she needed to clue Anya in as quickly as possible.

“Hey, Anya, who’s this?” Clarke asked, trying to keep her voice casual, despite the impatience she felt.

“This is Brook.” Anya introduced.

“Hi, Brook.” 

“Brook was just telling me about the funeral pyre they have each time one of the guards dies.”

“Yeah, they don’t do it for just anyone. The rest of us aren’t anything special to warrant grieving over.” Brook said bitterly. “Yet we’re the ones who have to build the goddamn pyre. God forbid the Queen or her general lift one of their prissy little fingers.”  

Ok, maybe Clarke should have given Anya more credit. This woman really hated Nia, which bode well for them. 

“Speaking of, I should probably go. I can tell Ontari is looking for me. It was nice talking to you, Anya.” Brook winked at her before walking back to where Ontari and Roan were overseeing the construction of the pyre. It had the wheels of Clarke’s mind spinning even faster.

At the moment, the guards didn’t seem to be paying attention to either Anya or Clarke, which made everything much easier. Although, it wouldn’t last long so they needed to talk quickly.

“I thought the pyre might make for a great opportunity,” Anya said. “It’ll have everyone distracted.”

True, but not nearly enough. And they would need more than a mere diversion to get Lexa away, when she was at the center of the camp and thus, everyone’s attention. But Anya’s connection with Brook might prove helpful in other ways. “Look, I have a plan. It’s risky but I think it’ll work. I just need to know you’ll be fully on board.”

“I told you I’m in.”

“Great. So here’s what we’re going to do…”

As Clarke rapidly relayed the plan she had worked out in her mind, Anya’s eyes widened, her usually stoic expression becoming one of surprise. Anya hadn’t expected something quite so bold from the blonde. 

When Clarke finished explaining the plan, she reconfirmed that Anya would do her part before walking away, not wanting to draw any more attention to them. She spent the rest of her day laying low, mindlessly talking with the children whose parents would let them near her while she went over the plan again and again in her head. Right now, there wasn’t much else to do but wait anxiously for the time to come. Every few seconds or so she looked over at Lexa, noting the way she sagged against her restraints, her head not held nearly as high as it was in the beginning. 

She hoped Lexa wasn’t losing faith in her, although she supposed she couldn’t blame her if she had. Clarke knew her plan would be cutting it close and, after pondering what Lexa would think of her plan in the first place, Clarke realized Lexa would hate it. Smiling to herself, Clarke imagined Lexa scolding her, her already pouty lips turned down in a scowl, her eyebrows furrowed, the muscle in her cheek working ceaselessly as she clenched and unclenched her jaw and her eyes piercing in her anger as she told Clarke she was far from straddling the line between bravery and stupidity; she had downright plunged herself across it. Maybe. But Clarke believed Lexa was worth it. 

/  / 

When it finally came time for the funeral pyre to be burned, the whole town was ordered and corralled by the armed guards to circle around the wooden structure that held the bodies of Dave and Ronnie. Nia, Ontari, and Roan stood in front, and Clarke tuned their voices out as they eulogized about the dead. Maybe it should have been her duty to listen to Ronnie’s, considering she was the one who killed him, but her mind was far too preoccupied with the plan to pay much attention to anything happening around her. She spotted Anya on the edge of the crowd and raised her eyebrows to ensure she had what she needed. When she saw the answering nod, Clarke felt a wave of relief flood through her at the knowledge that at least  _ that  _ part of the plan was ok. After Nia, Ontari, and Roan said their words, they welcomed up two women who appeared to be the men’s widows. That was enough to capture Clarke’s attention and while she was starting to accept the fact that what she did had been necessary to protect her and her friends, it didn’t make it any easier to see the direct consequence of her action standing in front of her, hardly able to get a word in through the tears streaming down her face and the sobs wracking her entire body. She finally gave up trying to speak in favor of burying her head in the other widow’s shoulder. When it came time to finally light the pyre, Nia handed off the torch to the two women and they lit it together.

Clarke steeled herself while the pyre burned. If they, by some grace of luck, get out of this situation alive there will be plenty of time to reflect on the pain she might have inadvertently caused by killing Ronnie, but right now all of her attention needed to be focused on the task before her. What was it Lexa had told her once when she had been so depressed over all the people she had likely lost she had refused to get out of bed one morning?  _ The dead are gone, the living are hungry.  _ And then threw her utility belt on her and left the room. Clarke shook her head at the memory, reflecting on what a tactless jerk Lexa could be sometimes. Still, she would give anything to go through that two week period where Lexa had been distant and cold all over again if it meant they never had to go through this mess. Another memory appeared in her mind’s eye: she and Lexa sprawled out on the warm stone after swimming, Lexa opening up to her about Costia, the girl who broke her heart and explaining the meaning of an old Marines saying. SNAFU. Situation Normal: All Fucked Up. Which was rapidly becoming the motif of her life.

The fire began to burn out and finally, Nia announced it was time to commence the next order of business. Justice. Or what passed for it these days. Clarke breathed slowly and deeply as she made her way towards the front of the crowd, which was moving towards the center of camp where Lexa still stood. Clarke could tell by the set of her shoulders and her bowed head she had accepted defeat and it hurt every bone in her body at the idea that Lexa likely believed Clarke had given up on her. When she heard the crowd coming towards her she straightened, holding her head high again as if she was commanding the group before her and not about to be sliced open and killed by them, in front of them.  _ This  _ was what a leader looked like, someone who demanded respect not through the use of fear and violence, but through the way they held themselves, the honor they lived by. Nia, Ontari, and Roan stood in front of Lexa, waiting for everyone to get situated in a circle around, guards lining the front to keep the crowd in order and prevent anyone from getting too close. Clarke noted that most of the people around her looked almost bored if they weren’t downright uneasy. It made her question Ontari’s claim that people participated because they found spilled blood to be entertaining. The way things looked, the people here didn’t seem to have much choice in the matter. Maybe the fact that all they were expected to do was cut someone a few times made it even easier to force them, while it was Nia who delivered the fatal blow. She was near the front and thus couldn’t see Anya, which made her believe she was in position near the edge of the crowd, making it easier for her to slip away.

“We are gathered here to deliver justice for the deaths of Ronald Jones and David Stafford, murdered today by this woman. Ronald was killed while making a supply run; he died trying to scavenge items that would help us survive. David died while apprehending his killer. They both died nobly, for the greater good of this camp, which is why we honored them with a proper send-off. And why we punish their killer so harshly. You will note that her accomplices are among us today and will participate in her sentence in order to make amends for associating with such a heartless person and to initiate themselves officially as one of us. I invite Janet Stafford and Amelia Jones to start us off.” Nia proclaimed, stepping aside.

Before the two widows could so much as step towards Lexa, Clarke pushed her away to the front of the crowd, stopped only by the presence of the guards in front of her. 

“Wait!” Her voice cried out. “I would like to say something.” 

Nia’s eyes found her in the crowd, which was pretty easy considering the people around Clarke stepped away from her as if wanting to show they in no way associated with the heckler. Her eyes narrowed, her mouth in a tight line. The guard in front of Clarke immediately turned around and grabbed her, starting to pull her away. 

 

“I challenge you!” Clarke yelled, struggling against the guards. People around her gasped, murmuring amongst themselves about what this stranger could possibly mean.

Nia signaled with her hand for the guard to relinquish his hold on Clarke, while ordering the crowd to silence themselves. They did so, immediately, only solidifying the authority Nia had over them. After all, what could she do if they all collectively decided to no longer listen to her? She and her guards were outnumbered. 

“You what?” Nia asked.

Lexa’s eyes were focussed entirely on Clarke, her eyebrows bunched tightly together as she tried to figure out what exactly it was Clarke was trying to do. Clearly, she had been unable to come up with a plan to save her and was now flailing hopelessly in a last ditch effort that will only serve in getting her killed along with Lexa. It was stupid, irresponsible and went against everything she had taught the blonde. Didn’t she tell her over and over again that she wouldn’t be able to survive if she let her emotions dictate her actions? It was because Lexa had made a choice with her heart over her head that they were in this mess, to begin with. She had decided to stay in the library as opposed to her usual plan to move along, partly because the library was comfortable and brought up memories of her mother… but mostly because she cared for Clarke, who clearly was in need of some time to rest after killing someone for the first time. If she had only insisted they move along, they would have been far out of town by the time Ontari and her gang rolled up. If, if, if. She remembered telling Clarke thinking like that only got you killed, but Lexa was getting killed either way. She decided she had the right to some defeatist thinking.

“I challenge you,” Clarke repeated in a lower, firmer tone of voice. 

“What does that even mean?” Nia asked. This had never happened before and it was throwing her. “You’re nobody, nothing. You have no basis in which to challenge me.”

“Exactly,” Clarke replied. “You’re the Queen, you’re supposed to have all the authority and here I am, some random outsider who's been here for a day, challenging that authority. What are you going to do about it?”

More murmurs throughout the crowd. Clarke noted with some pleasure that it took Nia longer this time to quiet them.

“Guards, take her to the RV for now. She can wait there while we continue on with this business. We’ll deal with her insubordination after.” 

“Why? Do you feel threatened by me?” Clarke yelled as the guard tried to grab her. “Do you think I could beat you?”

The crowd went silent for a moment before renewing their incessant chatter. Nia was far too busy glaring at Clarke to bother silencing them.

“Think  _ you  _ could beat  _ me _ ? Do you know who you’re talking to?” Nia’s voice thundered.

“I thought I was talking to the Queen. Turns out I’m just speaking to some cowardly old lady who isn’t able to back up the authority she claims she has. My mistake.” Clarke finally allowed the guard to grab her and take her away, knowing if Nia didn’t take the bait, it was all over. 

Lexa watched the confrontation silently, her eyes switching from Clarke to Nia. Maybe she had misjudged Clarke. Lexa could see the confident set of Clarke’s jaw, her straight posture, and the way she looked down at Nia from her raised chin throughout the interaction. It was  _ Nia _ who looked like she was losing control, her eyes flitting from the increasingly restless crowd to Clarke. Her hands held in tight fists by her side. 

Lexa’s eyes alighted on an older woman near the front of the crowd, a disfiguring scar across the left side of her face. She was the first among the crowd to yell, “Come on,  _ Nia,  _ she’s just some kid! Fight her!” 

It didn’t take long for a few others to join in. “Yeah, you’re the queen!” “Fight her!” “What are you so scared of? My five year old could take her!”

The crowd was growing increasingly agitated, heedless to the guards' attempts to silence them. 

“Enough!” Nia yelled and the clamor died down.

Through all this, the guard having stopped dragging her away in favor of crowd control, Clarke stood as tall as she could make herself, her lips spread into a half smile. She kept her gaze centered on Nia, watching as the anger gradually built within the older woman until she nearly thrummed with the force of it. Things were not going the way they were supposed to go for Queen Nia, her usually meek, subservient subjects becoming unruly in the face of the challenge Clarke had thrown at her. Maybe if she had let her guards take Clarke away immediately, the situation could have been avoided, but by letting Clarke remain, and continually antagonize her, she had unknowingly handed some of her authority over to the blonde woman across from her. And now that her subjects were demanding her to accept the challenge, to  _ fight  _ her, she really had no choice. If she denied, it would be the same as admitting defeat in the eyes of the people around her. 

Never in a million years did Clarke expect the plan to go  _ this  _ well. Although there was still plenty of time for it to go haywire, Clarke reminded herself.

Nia was seething as she glared at Clarke. When she spoke, she spoke loudly, commandingly, addressing the crowd as much as she was addressing Clarke. “You challenge my authority? Fine, we will fight and afterward, no one will dare question my authority, ever again.” She turned to Ontari, who had watched all of this transpire with an expression of rage and disgust on her face. “Ontari, come here.”

Ontari stepped forward until she stood at her mother’s side, looking up at her for further instruction. 

Nia turned to face Clarke again, however. “You will fight Ontari.”

That threw Clarke a little. She had been fully planning on Nia being her opponent (although if Anya was successful, hopefully she wouldn’t have to fight for long, either way). But she tried not to let her surprise show; instead, she cocked an eyebrow at Nia. “Can’t fight your own battles?”

“Ontari is my general, it is her  _ job _ to fight my battles for me so I can lead our people.” Nia snapped.

“Fine. I will fight Ontari.”

“Whoever is left alive wins and I promise it won’t be you, buttercup.” Ontari boasted. 

“Buttercup?” Clarke asked. “That’s the best you could come up with?”

Lexa was beginning to doubt Clarke’s course of action again. Clarke has never participated in hand-to-hand combat, the only training she received was that time on the farm, which felt like eons ago. Lexa cursed herself for not continuing their lessons and could only hope Ontari’s confidence was just bravado. She wanted to speak up, offer to fight in Clarke’s place but at the same time she knew by doing so she might only put a wrench in Clarke’s plan. Lexa simply had to trust that Clarke knew what she was doing. 

Nia led the two widows, who had watched the scene with wide eyes, off to the side, ensuring plenty of space for Ontari and Clarke to fight. All of the guards stood more tensely against the crowd, which was near bursting at the unexpected turn the night had taken. The only light anyone had to see by was the soft glow of the lit torches spread out along the border of the crowd. 

Nia signalled for the fight to begin. Clarke and Ontari began circling each other, waiting for the other to strike. 

Clarke tried to her best to replicate the stance Lexa had taught her weeks ago, keeping her arms up in order to defend her face. 

Ontari charged at Clarke, who managed to block her advancing fist, only to be hit with a hard punch to the stomach that sucked all the oxygen out of her lungs. She bent over, trying to get her wind back, and Ontari swung her leg up, her foot connecting with her nose in a splintering crack that had Clarke sprawling on her back, clutching her bent nose and tasting the copper flavor of her blood on her lips. She had never been in a fight before, hadn’t prepared herself for the pain, couldn’t have, it was impossible. This was light years away from sparring with Lexa and all Clarke could do was attempt to crawl away from Ontari as she stood over her. When she placed her foot across Clarke’s sternum and began pressing down, Clarke instinctively grabbed her ankle and pulled it in an attempt to lessen the increasing weight on her chest. The first tug put Ontari off balance and while she was working to right herself, Clarke tugged her ankle once more, sending her flailing to the ground, her arms held out before her to cushion the fall. Clarke crawled over, intending to punch, claw, hell, even bite, at Ontari, whatever it took to keep her head above water, to inflict a few injuries to offset the ones she received. She dodged a kicking foot blindly searching out for its target, and dragged her way on top of Ontari, pinning her with the weight of her body. Grabbing at the woman’s hair, Clarke pulled her head back and slammed it forward, hardly aware of what she was doing, letting her instincts guide her. Ontari bucked her hips up, dislodging Clarke, yelping as Clarke, upon falling backward, pulled roughly at the hair still bunched in her fist. When Clarke landed on her ass, she held a patch of hair in her hand. She got to her feet just as Ontari did, noting the other girl’s bloody nose and the bald patch on the top of her head. 

Just as Ontari stepped forward, a sound from the other side of the camp had everyone turning just in time to spot the bigger tent in the far right corner burst into flame. Clarke looked at it for a mere second, knowing Anya had done her part, before running and throwing herself at a still gaping Ontari, sending them both crashing to the ground. There were screams and hoarse yells around them but Clarke hardly paid them any mind, directing all her attention towards the girl below her. She had her thumbs in her eyes, pressing down as hard as she could as Ontari gripped tightly at her wrist, finally forcing Clarke to give. The moment of weakness allowed Ontari plenty of time to switch their positions so she was on top and she didn’t waste one second unsheathing her knife,  _ Lexa’s  _ knife, from her belt and jabbing it towards Clarke’s neck. Reflexively, Clarke shot her arm out in front of her, the knife driving into her forearm. 

Everyone else, other than Nia and Lexa, was preoccupied with the fire, the guards completely disregarding the bloody fight between their general and the newcomer in favor of grabbing the buckets of drinking water stationed near the center of camp in an attempt to douse the rapidly growing fire. When the first arrow tore through one of the guards, the buckets of water were also summarily abandoned in favor of their guns, although much good they would do them if they couldn’t see the person firing at them. It didn’t take long (Anya’s arrows hit their mark eight more times before almost begrudgingly switching over to one of the guns she had also scavenged from the tent before setting fire to it) for Nia’s trusted guards to desert their posts in order to flee along with the rest of the people. 

Lexa was fighting against her restraints as hard she could in order to get to Clarke. It was the sight of Nia coming towards her with a knife that had her kicking both her legs out, landing a blow on her lower abdomen that had her falling back on her ass. Lexa was thankfully able to get her feet under her again before her weight could pull her arms even more taut than they already were. She wasn’t sure how long she could hold off Nia with just her feet, however. 

Clarke shouted out in her pain, only pushing back against the weight of Ontari bearing down on the knife in an attempt to drive it further into her flesh by sheer reflex. Finally, she was able to use her other hand to land a series of punches against the woman’s neck, the side of her head, anywhere Clarke could reach in her frantic need to get this bitch  _ off  _ her. One particular blow to her temple send Ontari flailing to the side. Before she even had time to think about it, Clarke ripped the knife out of her arm, letting out a hoarse scream, everything going gray before coming back in sharp focus, (knowing pulling the knife out went against everything she had learned from her mom, various doctor shows, and her own pre-med classes but not caring, it’s not like she had a goddamn  _ x-ray machine  _ handy to ensure Ontari hadn’t nicked any arteries) and drove the knife up and into the soft flesh above her, the knife meeting Ontari’s torso right as she jumped on top of Clarke again. The body above Clarke went still, Ontari’s eyes glancing down at the knife stuck in her belly, right up to the hilt, before looking back up at Clarke. Blood spilled out of her mouth and dripped onto Clarke’s face and Clarke stared at the wide-eyed expression on Ontari’s face with a mirrored look of shock on her own face.

“You… you.” But that seemed to be about all Ontari could manage to croak out before her mouth went slack and Clarke watched her eyes go blank. 

A blood-curdling scream finally alerted Clarke to the fact that this wasn’t over, not by a longshot, and she looked up to see Nia running towards her, brandishing a knife, before an arrow whooshed through the air and lodged itself in the center of her chest, stopping her in her tracks. She heaved one last raspy breath before collapsing in a heap on the ground. Clarke pushed Ontari off her, pausing only to remove the knife from her side and grab the sheath off her belt before running over to Lexa. As she used the still bloody knife to cut Lexa’s restraints, Lexa almost fell to the ground, but Clarke reached out and caught her, nearly falling over herself from the weight of Lexa. 

“I got you.” She whispered. But everything seemed out of focus, soft around the edges, and the next thing she knew she was on the ground, looking up at the starry sky tinted orange as the world around her burnt down in flames. The last thing she saw before passing out completely was the sight of green eyes hovering above her, green eyes that had Clarke thinking of light falling through a canopy of green leaves, of moving through a still lake tinted green by algae, watching as the soft ripples disturb the surface of the water, before everything faded to black. 

  
  



	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lexa brings Clarke back to health after she's injured. Anya tries to play matchmaker.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am not a doctor so read the medical scenes with a grain of salt :)

As soon as Clarke hit the ground, Lexa got on her knees beside her, her eyes concentrated on the blood spilling out of the wound in her arm. She ripped off a strip of her own shirt and tied it tightly around the slice of open flesh, noting that the knife had gone all the way through. Right now, it was impossible to tell the extent of the damage done to her arm and Lexa could only pray that assuming she could stop the bleeding and patch Clarke up, the girl wouldn’t lose function in her arm due to a severed nerve.

Lexa sensed someone approaching and grabbed the knife that Clarke had dropped upon passing out. Standing up, she positioned herself between the oncoming threat and Clarke’s body, tensing up for a fight. Her arms were incredibly sore from being stretched out for so long and her legs cried out for respite, having been on her feet all day, but nothing,  _ no one,  _ was going to stop her from getting her and Clarke out of the rapidly burning camp in order to find someplace safe where she could bring Clarke back to health. Whoever was coming towards them was going to experience all of her wrath, built up from hours of being tied up and derided, while she helplessly waited for Clarke to save her. And Clarke had, by risking her own life, right in front of Lexa, who could do nothing but watch. Now, finally, she was free thanks to Clarke’s efforts, and it was her turn to do whatever she could to keep her companion safe. 

She felt relief flood through her at the sight of Anya appearing, two rifles and a backpack slung across her back, her crossbow in hand. She hardly paid Lexa any attention, walking straight towards Clarke. 

“We have to get out of here before the fire spreads any further,” Anya demanded, letting the crossbow hang on its strap as she bent down to grab Clarke’s legs. She paused for enough time to pick up Lexa’s sheath and throw it at her. “Put down that knife and come help me, asshole.”

Lexa hardly registered the insult, hurriedly strapping the sheath to her belt and sliding the knife in before bending over and hooking her arms under Clarke and lifting her at the same time as Anya did. She ignored the pain in her sore muscles at the effort.

They made their way to the nearest wall of cars, as fast as they could with Clarke’s slack body between them. They gently laid Clarke on the hood of one of the cars, while Lexa and Anya climbed around the back.

“I can take her the rest of the way myself. I need you to be on alert for any straggling guards.” Lexa told Anya as she scooped Clarke into her arms. Her muscles cried out in agony but she hardly noticed at this point. Her mind zeroed in on getting Clarke to a safe place where Lexa could work on her injuries, everything else becoming secondary. She heard soft, incomprehensive mumblings coming from Clarke, felt her shifting slightly against her body. Lexa hardly heard the whispers of reassurances coming from her own mouth as she walked away from the camp, Anya taking point. 

Lexa knew time was of the essence, that they needed to stop the bleeding as soon as possible before Clarke lost too much to be saved. As soon as they walked far enough away from the camp to not worry about the fire or the smoke, Lexa stopped. This would have to be good enough, otherwise, Clarke wouldn’t make it. 

“Anya!” Lexa yelled. “We can’t go much further; Clarke needs help.”

Anya turned back in time to see Lexa laying Clarke gently on the ground. They were far enough away from the camp to not have to worry about the fire but Anya still wanted to put as much distance between them and Nia’s former stomping ground. It seemed like bad luck to stick around for much longer. But Anya could tell by Clarke’s pallor and the blood dripping down her arm, despite the makeshift bandage Lexa had tied across her wound, that they had no choice. 

“Is there anything in that bag I can use?” Lexa asked Anya over Clarke’s body. Anya pulled the rifles and the backpack off her shoulder so she could get at the inventory of supplies she had managed to scavenge from the tent she had then set fire to using some gasoline and a few matches that Brook had slipped her.

“You’re in luck. They were using this tent as a kind of supply closet. They had all sorts of shit in there: weapons, food, clothes, you name it. And a pretty decent array of medical supplies. I grabbed as much as I could in the limited amount of time I had.” Anya talked as she dug through the mess of the bag, clearly thrown together in a haste, pulling out a medium-sized first aid kit, which was yanked out of her hand before she even had time to offer it to Lexa. “It’s pretty sick the way they were hoarding all that stuff when you saw the way the people in the camp lived. Nia must have been keeping it all for herself and her guard. Probably using it as leverage against the rest of the people.”

“Anya, I really don’t have time to talk about the injustices Nia inflicted on her people because right now Clarke is slipping and I’m going to need your help.” Lexa cut in, a frantic edge to her voice, as she opened the first aid kit in order to take quick stock of the resources available to her. She let out a sigh of relief; this wasn’t some cheap first aid kit made for poolside bars and elementary schools. This was a first aid kit outfitted for more severe emergencies than a scraped knee on the playground. It even included a pair of glasses with a small flashlight attached for Lexa to see by.

Lexa untied the soaked bandage from Clarke’s arm and used one of the alcohol wipes to clean both sides of her wound, tearing the package with her teeth. Clarke stirred, groaning softly, at the no doubt painful sting of the alcohol against her fresh cut. 

“Do you know what you’re doing?” Anya asked.

“I received some basic first aid training in the Marines and I’ve watched enough army medics at work to know what I need to do. This much blood, Ontari must have nicked an artery. I need to find the hole, suture it, and then close Clarke up. We just have to hope we’re in time to save her before she’s lost too much blood.”

“What do you need from me?”

“I need you to hold her down. I’m going inside her without any anesthetic and she’s going to fight like hell. Hopefully, the pain will make her pass out before long, but before that, I need you to keep her still, help soothe her if you can.” Lexa explained as she got all of the needed supplies ready and put on a pair of latex gloves after rubbing her hands clean with another of the alcohol wipes. Lexa wanted to commend whoever put together the first aid kit and kiss Anya for the foresight to grab it. 

Using forceps, which she had sterilized using the alcohol wipes, she stretched the cut open in order to get a look at the wound from the inside. 

Clarke’s eyes flew open and she started to jerk up before Anya’s hands on her shoulder pushed her back down.

“Clarke, it’s Anya. Lexa is helping you right now, trying to make you better but in order for her to do that, you have to stay still, ok? Can you do that?” Anya asked softly, rubbing small circles on Clarke’s shoulders with her thumbs. Her eyes were glassy, flitting around so fast until finally, she settled on Anya’s face, letting out a loud scream of pain as Lexa dug her fingers into the hole in her arm. Her whole arm felt like it was on fire like someone was pressing a hot rod right into her nerves. She could only hear snatches of whatever Anya was telling her, the image of Lexa bent over her arm, her face tensed in concentration, graying out intermittently between the relentless probes of fingers in her flesh, which brought her sharply back to full consciousness each time.

Lexa was becoming increasingly frustrated, wanting to scream and beat her fists against the ground, or preferably against someone’s face, as she searched futilely for the nick all this blood was seeping out of. She had to constantly wipe it away with the supply of gauze the first aid kit provided in order to see anything more than a mess of red. She was beginning to think that it truly  _ was  _ futile, that Clarke was going to bleed to death right in front of her, and it would be her fault for not being able to save her. Panic threatened to overwhelm her but she pushed it back, knowing it wasn’t the time to give in to it; she had to be strong for Clarke. Clarke needed her right now like she had needed Clarke just half an hour ago. Clarke had come through for her, despite the odds stacked against her, had put down her  _ life  _ in order to save her, the full realization of what Clarke had done for her finally hitting home. It only made her search more frantically for the small hole that threatened to take Clarke away from her. Finally, she found it and held it closed with her finger.

“Anya, I need you to come over to me and hand me the threaded needle and the needle holder,” Lexa ordered.

Clarke had passed out again, meaning Anya no longer had to babysit her and she quickly moved around her limp body to settle next to Lexa. She handed her the needle holder, which looked like a pair of scissors with a very small clamp at the end that locked the already threaded needle in place. 

“Hold the forceps for me.” Lexa ordered and Anya went around to Lexa’s other side so she could hold the forceps keeping the slit open without being in Lexa’s way. 

Lexa carefully threaded the needle through the small nick in Clarke’s artery, holding her breath until she pulled the suture tight and exhaling in relief at the sight of the blood flow finally slowing. 

“Ok, that was the hard part. Now I just have to sew her up. While I’m doing that, why don’t you head back towards camp and try to hotwire one of the cars?” 

Anya looked at the camp mostly engulfed in flames by this point. Maybe if she was fast enough she could get to a car on the far side, the farthest from the flames and drive it back around. She didn’t waste any time grabbing her crossbow and running back towards the camp. 

Lexa knew she was leaving herself exposed by sending Anya away but she didn’t see how she had any choice. Her priority was Clarke, stitching her up and getting her the hell out of here to a place where she could rest and recover. She had lost a lot of blood, meaning she’d likely be out of commission for the next few days and there was still a chance she might never stabilize. Not to mention the risk of infection. 

Lexa applied the sutures as quickly as she could, choosing efficiency over cosmetics. It wouldn’t heal pretty but it would heal and that’s all Lexa cared about. When she was done, she cleaned the wound one more time with some alcohol wipes and bandaged it up using some gauze.

She took a moment to study Clarke, now that there wasn’t anything to do but wait for Anya to come back with the car. Her skin was pale and layered with a sheen of sweat. When Lexa held her fingers under the right side of her jaw, she noted Clarke’s heartbeat was on the slower side for sure, but it felt strong.

“Your fight isn’t over, Clarke. Not by a longshot.” Lexa whispered, tucking a stray lock of blonde hair behind Clarke’s ear. Her hand lingered against the side of Clarke’s face as she softly stroked Clarke’s neck with her thumb. She swallowed thickly against a lump that had built in her throat and took her hand away in order to pack up the first aid kit, put it and the various items Anya had thrown around in her haste back in the backpack. As she did so, she noticed a box of ammo for the rifles and took out a few magazines, loading up one of the guns, and sticking the remaining magazines in the pockets of her pants. 

It was then that she noticed the walkers coming out of the treeline, no doubt drawn by the light of the fire. They were still a good distance from her and Clarke and she hoped Anya would get here before they had time to get closer. If it came to it, she would use the rifle to mow them down quickly. 

She heard the sound of a car approaching, its headlights cutting through the darkness and nearly blinding her as it came to a stop in front of her. Anya immediately got out and Lexa helped her carry Clarke into the backseat, being careful not to jostle her too much, lest they tear out her stitches. Lexa situated herself in the backseat as well, with Clarke’s head resting in her lap, her rifle in the foot space behind the front seat. After Anya tossed the other rifle and the backpack in the passenger seat, she got behind the wheel and drove them away. She watched in the rearview mirror as the camp burned to the ground until they were driving on the dirt road and the camp was no longer in her sight line. Good riddance, Anya thought as she felt a wave of relief course through her, and on its tail, exhaustion, right down to the bone. Priority number one would be finding a comfortable place to spend the night, probably a few days while Clarke recovered. Looking in the rearview mirror, she watched as Lexa regularly checked Clarke’s pulse between braiding Clarke’s hair. Anya shook her head, smiling to herself as she thought,  _ so fucking gay.  _

/ /

It took them 30 minutes to get to the nearest town. Anya pulled up to the first house they saw, telling Lexa that she’ll go in and clear the house on her own so Lexa could stay with Clarke. By this point, Lexa had completed an intricate pattern of braids across Clarke’s head, finding that having something to do with her hands calmed her. As calm as she could be given the circumstance. 

Anya came out of the house, giving a thumbs up to Lexa that the house was clear. 

“You grab the stuff, I’ll get Clarke,” Lexa said as she got out of the car, careful to gently lower Clarke’s head off her lap and onto the seat below her. Anya nodded, grabbing Lexa’s rifle before walking around to the passenger’s side to get the rest of her booty.

Lexa got on her knees so she was more level with Clarke’s head. 

“Clarke, I need you to wake up briefly so you can help me get you out of the car. I don’t want to hurt you.” Lexa said softly, rubbing Clarke’s head in order to rouse her, drawing faint whimpers from the girl. “I’m going to put you directly in bed, which I bet will be much more comfortable than the back of this car.” 

She continued rubbing Clarke’s head until finally, she was looking into blue eyes, droopy and slightly unfocused, but blue eyes all the same. The sight brought an unbidden smile to Lexa’s face. 

“C’mon, I’ll carry you. You won’t have to do a thing after you get out of the car.” Lexa assured.

“Like a princess?” Clarke said groggily and then groaned in pain. “My face.”

“Yes, like a princess. Although you were more like the Commander today.”

“Princesses can be badasses too,” Clarke muttered as she struggled to sit up, needing help from Lexa. “Don’t play into the Commander-Princess dichotomy.”

“I didn’t even know such a thing existed,” Lexa said. “But I’m glad you haven’t lost your snark.” 

Lexa put a hand around Clarke’s waist and assisted Clarke into a standing position.

“I don’t need you to carry me, maybe just let me lean on you for support.”

Lexa’s sore muscles thanked Clarke heartily. Clarke wrapped her arm around Lexa’s waist, leaning her body against Lexa’s as they made their way to the front door, which Anya had left open. 

Luckily, there was a bed on the first level, meaning they wouldn’t have to navigate stairs. Lexa leaned over, her arm not leaving Clarke’s side, as she pulled back the covers and helped Clarke get into the bed. Clarke’s head immediately fell against the pillow and she began drowsing as Lexa worked to take her shoes off, placing them neatly against the wall. 

She went around to the other side of the bed, grabbing the two pillows there and using them to keep Clarke’s arm elevated. 

“Clarke.” She whispered. It took her three more repeats of her name and a couple taps on the head for Clarke to wake up again, looking disoriented at being woken up again.

“I thought you said I could go to bed.” She whined.

“I know and you will. I just… you still have a broken nose. And the longer we wait to set it… and it’s probably making it harder for you to breathe...” 

Clarke whimpered. “Do we have to?”

“It’s better to just get it over with.” 

“Ok.” But she sounded unsure.

Lexa came around to Clarke’s side of the bed and began unbuckling her belt.

“What are you doing?” 

“It’s a trick I learned. When I was a kid and my foster dad dislocated my shoulder. One of the older kids had to set it for me.” Lexa knew she hadn’t even told Clarke she was a foster kid before, let alone that she had been victim to a lot of abuse while in the system, and wondered if she would even remember it come morning. 

Even in her exhausted and very questionable mental state as a result from the events of the day and the amount of blood she lost, Clarke still registered what Lexa told her; it would be hard not to. But she wasn’t in the right mind to figure out a good thing to say in response, something that told Lexa she cared, and she could go on if she wanted to. All she could do was look at her; even so, Lexa seemed to understand because she gave her a slight smile that didn’t quite alleviate the worry in her eyes.

Lexa slid her belt out from its loops and handed it to Clarke. “When I count to three, I’m going to set your nose, ok? And when I do, you need to bite down on the belt, at the exact same time, in order to catch the pain.”

“What?” 

“You need to bite down on the belt in order to catch the pain with your teeth,” Lexa explained as if it made all the sense in the world.

“I heard you, it just doesn’t make any sense,” Clarke replied. 

“It doesn’t have to. Just promise me you’ll focus on biting as hard as you can on the count of three.” 

“Ok…” Clarke agreed hesitantly, but what the hell? What harm could it do and at the very least it might prevent her from biting off her tongue or something. She placed the belt in her mouth, and then looked expectantly at Lexa. 

“Ok, Clarke. Here goes.” Lexa placed her hands on Clarke’s nose, ignoring the way she flinched at the pain. “One, two… three!”

Just as Clarke felt her bone crack she bit down on the belt and yes, it hurt like a bitch, but not as much as she was expecting it would. When she opened her jaw and removed the belt, her teeth were indented on the leather. 

“Are you ok?” Lexa asked.

“Yeah, I am actually. Are you magic?” Clarke handed Lexa her belt. 

Lexa took a second to study the imprint of Clarke’s teeth before walking over and placing it on the table beside the couch. 

“It’s just simple misdirection. But I thought my foster brother was magic too when he did it. It helped that I was just a kid. Suspension of disbelief and all that.” Lexa sat on the couch. “Go to bed, Clarke. You need to sleep. I’ll be right here if you need me.”

“Lexa you need to sleep too.” But her complaint didn’t sound very convincing considering it was half muffled by the pillow she just sunk her head back into.

“I know. I will. This couch isn’t half-bad. Definitely beats being stretched across the length of two poles for four hours.” 

Clarke only hummed, already half-asleep. 

Lexa smiled, looking at her for another moment or two before lying down herself.

“Good night, Clarke.” 

It didn’t take long for sleep to claim her either. 

Lexa woke up multiple times throughout the night, driven awake by a certainty that Clarke had passed while she lay asleep on the couch a few feet away. Each time she woke, she rose from her position on the couch and took Clarke’s pulse, gently so as not to wake the girl, the rise and fall of her chest more than enough to tell Lexa she was alive, but still needing the confirmation of her beating heart to put her own worried heart at ease. 

When Lexa woke for good the following morning, she checked Clarke’s pulse one more time before slipping out of the bedroom. 

Surprisingly Anya was already up, looking through the stuff of whoever had lived here before. She looked at Lexa as soon as she entered the room, placing the picture she held back on the shelf she had grabbed it from. 

“How’s Clarke?” Anya asked as Lexa stepped forward.

“She’s asleep. She seems to be okay for now, but we’re not out of the woods yet.”

Anya tilted her head, silently telling Lexa to continue.

“She’s still at risk for infection. Which would show itself within the next couple of days, likely sooner rather than later. Her body is already weak from the amount of blood she lost, making her more vulnerable. Or so I would think. I’m not a doctor.”

Anya nodded. “Neither am I but it sounds intuitive. I take it you need something from me.”

Lexa raised her eyebrows. “I know there’s little love lost between us right now, but this isn’t about me. It’s about Clarke.” 

“She nearly died for you.” 

“I’m more than aware of that. Why do you think I’m working so hard to save her?” Lexa said evenly, but there was a bite underlying her tone. 

“I don’t know, maybe to even the playing field so you won’t feel so bad about betraying her further down the road.”

Lexa let out a short, humorless bark of laughter. “And what makes you so sure I’m going to betray her?”

“You strike me as that kind of person.”

“You hardly know me.”

“Are you telling me that if it had been her tied up to those posts, you would’ve done what she did for you?”

Lexa’s jaw tensed as she stared Anya down, the woman matching the ferocity behind her stare step for step. “No, because what she did was stupid, and she’s lucky Nia was just as stupid to fall for it. But that doesn’t mean I’d leave her for dead either.”

When Anya didn’t respond, Lexa continued, the bite in her voice even more evident. “Are you going to help me or not? Tell me now so I can do it myself.”

“What do you need me to do?” Anya asked.

The tight coil of Lexa’s anger loosened ever so slightly. “I need you to find a drugstore and raid their supply of antibiotics. Can you do that?”

Anya nodded after a beat. “I know penicillin and amoxicillin but that’s the extent of my knowledge on antibiotics.”

“My knowledge isn’t much better. But those are common enough that you should find them, assuming someone else didn’t loot them all.”

Anya walked over to grab her crossbow sitting on the table in the hallway. She lingered for a moment outside the front door, sensing Lexa wanted to say something else.

“Thank you, Anya.” 

Anya nodded once more before slipping out the door. 

Lexa found some canned soup in the kitchen and had one for breakfast before digging through Anya’s backpack, which she had left in the dining room, for the first aid kit. 

Clarke was still asleep when she walked back in the bedroom and Lexa sat carefully on the edge of the bed, pulling Clarke’s wounded arm off its throne of pillows and onto her lap before carefully unwrapping the bandage. The sutures were still in place, which was good, but the area looked swollen and red. Lexa only hoped it was more related to the trauma of the injury than a sign of infection. She carefully cleaned the wound using the alcohol wipes, causing Clarke to stir in her sleep, and before she could grab the roll of fresh gauze, a hand wrapped weakly around her wrist and she was staring into Clarke’s tired blue eyes.

“Lex.” She whispered. 

“I’m here.” 

“You’re okay.”

Lexa nodded. “Yes. I’m not the one who was stabbed.”

“Ontari,” Clarke stated.

“Dead.”

“I killed her.”

Lexa nodded, too focused on searching Clarke’s face for a reaction to bother speaking. 

“I stabbed her, watched her die. And Nia was shot by an arrow. And I freed you.”

“Then you blacked out.”

Clarke finally looked down at her wrapped arm. “Did you do this?”

Lexa nodded again.

“You saved me.”

“Only after you saved me.”

Clarke looked at Lexa for a moment, reading the tension in the set of her jaw and the tightness of her lips, and desperately wanting to break it. Her gaze shifted to look at the line of sutures along her forearm. When she looked back up at Lexa, a playful smile stretched across her face. 

“I might not have made it to medical school, but I’ve watched enough Grey’s Anatomy to know those sutures are terrible.” Clarke teased.

After another moment of tense silence, Clarke was blessed with one of Lexa’s smirks. “I was too busy saving your life to make it pretty.” 

“And now I have to spend the rest of my life with a hideous scar to prove it,” Clarke stated dramatically. She dropped the act immediately when she saw the tears welling up in Lexa’s eyes. “Lexa, I’m sorry. I was just kidding around, trying to ease the tension. I didn’t mean-“

Lexa shook her head, closing her eyes and taking a steadying breath, willing the tears away. “Clarke, it’s not that. I just-“ She bit her lip. “What you did was really stupid.”

Clarke rolled her eyes but she was smiling. “I knew you’d think so.

“But you did it anyway.”

Clarke’s expression became serious as she met Lexa’s hesitant gaze. This was the most unsettled Clarke had seen her, which was pretty ridiculous when she considered the fact that just yesterday she had been tied to some posts, awaiting a slow and painful death. “Yeah, I did.” 

Lexa’s eyes flitted between Clarke’s, searching. “Why?”

“What do you mean why? To save your life.”

“But you could have died, would’ve died if I hadn’t... why didn’t you just let Nia kill me? You could’ve escaped.”

“Is that what you would’ve done?” Clarke asked. 

There was a tense silence as Lexa contemplated the question that Anya had asked her only minutes ago. Anya was easier to answer to, maybe because, with her, honesty didn’t matter as much. She looked at the sliver of bed between her and Clarke, her jaw working along with her mind before she finally raised her eyes to meet Clarke’s. “That depends. Who’s on the chopping block?”

Clarke snorted, a slight shake of her head being all Lexa needed to let her know how Clarke felt about her answer. 

“Are you telling me you would have done what you did for anyone?” Lexa asked, eyebrows raised. 

A pause. 

“No,” Clarke admitted.

“Don’t confuse calculation with cruelty, Clarke. You won’t be able to save anyone by throwing yourself into half-assed plans that are more likely to get yourself killed than accomplish anything.”

“I saved you, didn’t I?” Clarke snapped.

“You got lucky.” Lexa retorted, the harsh tone of her voice making Clarke cringe. Lexa softened. “I’m not trying to be ungrateful, because I’m in awe of what you did for me. And despite how unbelievably stupid it was, it took a lot of guts. And you fought well.” She paused, her teeth clenching together, instinctively trying to hold back what she wanted to say next. “You don’t know how hard it was watching you bleed out. I almost wasn’t able to stop it. And even when I did... I wasn’t sure I was quick enough; if you had maybe lost too much blood and it didn’t matter what I did. You-“ Her voice cracked, the moisture in her eyes forcing her to stop. To compensate, her voice only became louder, sterner in its tone. “You can’t risk your life like that... and expect me to... you just can’t do that.”

Clarke felt tears build in her eyes at the emotions Lexa was so clearly fighting against. “Lexa.” She said softly, wanting to reassure the girl. 

Lexa shook her head, swallowing the lump in her throat and blinking her tears away. “Tell me you won’t do something like that again.” She demanded, and Clarke saw the desperation in her eyes. 

“I would do it again, Lexa. I’d do it again over and over because I wouldn’t be able to stomach the alternative.”

It was implied that the alternative would be standing back and letting Lexa die. 

“Neither could I.” Lexa let out in one breath as if wanting to spill the admission as quickly as she could. “I don’t know why.”

“It’s what happens when you care about someone, Lex. You’d do anything for them.” Clarke explained softly and Lexa closed her eyes. 

Lexa shook her head after a moment and finally opened her eyes again. 

Before Lexa could attempt to backtrack, Clarke continued, “I care about you, Lex. That’s why I did what I did. And it’s also why I understand how scary it must have been for you because I don’t know what I would have done if it had been you bleeding out in front of me. If I had to watch you be cut 1,000 times before being killed... I just couldn’t. And so I didn’t.” 

They shared a meaningful look, and Clarke drank it all in, knowing seeing Lexa so open, her emotions spilling out of her eyes, was a rarity she might never get to witness again. 

Lexa broke the stare, turning her attention to picking the roll of fresh gauze out of the kit. “I need to rewrap your arm.”

Clarke nodded, letting Lexa take her arm in her hands, watching as she gently wrapped her arm in the soft material and relishing her gentle touch. Clarke didn’t need Lexa to come right out and tell her she cared; Clarke could see it in the soft worry of her eyes, feel it in the delicate way she tended Clarke’s injuries.  

“Where’s Anya? Did she not make it?” Clarke asked suddenly.

“She’s fine. She’s out right now, trying to find antibiotics in case you develop an infection.”

Clarke relaxed again. “God, last night is such a blur.”

“That’s normal. It’ll start becoming clearer in time.”

“Maybe it would be better if it didn’t,” Clarke muttered sourly, turning her head to look out the window. 

“Kinder, yes. There will always be things we wish to forget. But remembering is the burden we carry for living when so many others didn’t.” She spoke softly, her eyes never leaving Clarke’s face, even as it was turned away from her. “You should go back to sleep, Clarke. Rest some more.” 

Clarke watched as Lexa stood up, immediately missing the dip of the mattress from Lexa’s weight, the comfort of her presence. 

“I’ll get you some soup first. You’re probably starving.” 

Clarke ate every drop of the soup Lexa brought before burrowing her head into the pillow. As much as she wished she could stay awake to enjoy how soft and unguarded Lexa was being around her, a behavior she wasn’t sure would carry over once she was back in full health, her exhaustion was simply too strong to fight. And she thought she had fought enough the last couple days. 

It was another hour before Anya returned, a shoulder bag slung across the front of her body, resting on her hip.

“Did you find it?” Lexa asked, getting up from her position on the couch where she had been reading a book she had found upstairs.

Anya nodded, placing the shoulder bag on the table across from the couch. “And a bunch of other stuff too. More gauze, bandages, aspirin, some water. I even found…” She unzipped the bag and took out a bottle of bourbon. “This.” 

Lexa ignored the alcohol, reaching into the bag to pull out the rest of the contents. There were three bottles of prescription pills with Penicillin written across the label. “Nice job, Anya. This is more than enough.”

“Believe me, I was tempted to steal some of the other prescription drugs they had. Valium, Ativan, a shitton of opiods.”

Lexa rolled her eyes. “I’m glad you thought better of it.”

“Yeah, drugs are the coward’s way out, right?” Anya glared at Lexa, who finally pulled her eyes away from the bottle of antibiotics to stare right back at her. She let her arm fall to her side with a sigh.

“I’m sorry for calling you a coward. I was clearly mistaken.” 

Before Lexa could say anything else, the sound of Clarke calling her name sent her running into the other room, Anya close on her tail.

Clarke’s face was covered in a sheen of sweat, contorted in a grimace. “It hurts. Really bad. This morning it was like an aching throb, but now… now it’s like my whole arm is on fire.”

When Lexa stepped closer, she saw red streaks extending up Clarke’s arm. She held her hand against Clarke’s forehead, grimacing at the warmth she found there.

“Anya, can you bring the antibiotics, and some water?” Lexa called over her shoulder, surprised to find Anya standing beside her with the antibiotics and a bottle of water already in hand. She grabbed the pill bottle, taking a moment to read the label to figure out the dosage, before taking two pills out and handing them to Clarke along with the water. 

“It’s Penicillin,” Lexa explained when Clarke stared at the unidentified pills in her hand. She took it, swallowing a large swig of water to chase it down before handing the bottle off to Lexa and falling back against the pillow. 

“Do you want some aspirin? It might help with the pain.” Lexa offered.

“Maybe I  _ should _ have grabbed some of the opioids.” Anya said

“Aspirin will be fine.” 

Lexa was out the door before Clarke could even finish the sentence, grabbing the aspirin off the table and running back to the bedroom.

“The service here is really top-notch,” Clarke said as she swallowed down the three pills of aspirin Lexa handed her with another swig of water. 

“How do you feel?” Lexa asked.

“Really sick and everything hurts. And it’s hot. Do you feel hot?” Clarke groaned.

“It’s the fever. But the antibiotics should help. It says to give you two pills every four hours for the next week.”

Clarke whimpered. 

Lexa didn’t understand how someone could down spiral so quickly. An hour or so ago her wound had looked a little red and swollen, but Clarke had been fine. Now her whole arm was red and Clarke was grimacing against the pain, the heat coming off her in waves. 

Lexa sat down on the bed, holding Clarke’s hand when she reached out for her. “It’s ok, Clarke. You’re going to get better. The medicine will help you.” Lexa assured, hoping her voice or her face didn’t betray how worried she felt. 

“Anya.” Clarke greeted. 

“Hey, Clarke.”

“Our plan worked.”

“ _ Your _ plan worked.”

“I couldn’t have done it without you.” 

“I won’t argue with that,” Anya replied and Clarke chuckled weakly. 

“I feel so tired,” Clarke mumbled.

“Go to sleep, Clarke.” Lexa urged.

Clarke’s eyes closed, despite her best efforts to keep them open. “You’ll be here when I wake up?” 

“I wouldn’t dream of being anywhere else.” 

“And I’ll be here too,” Anya added.

/ / 

Lexa spent the rest of the day in Clarke’s bedroom, sitting on the couch and reading or chatting idly with Anya between checking on Clarke. She woke up regularly, sometimes complaining about the pain, her fever, or the vivid nightmares that had her jerking awake, her fever contributing to the disorientation she felt upon waking to find that whatever horror she had been suffering had only been a dream. Lexa did her best to soothe Clarke each time she woke, sitting on the side of her bed and coaxing her back to sleep with soft words and even softer touches. 

“I’m impressed,” Anya confessed when Lexa walked back to the couch after Clarke had woken from a particularly bad nightmare; it had taken a little longer to calm her down but eventually Clarke was able to fall asleep to the sound of Lexa telling her one of the few positive memories of her childhood. 

“I didn’t know you were such a softy,” Anya said with a smirk.

Lexa gave her a sour look as she picked up her book and promptly began reading again. “I know it must be shocking for you to learn I’m not a completely horrible person.”

“I don’t think you are a horrible person. You’re often tactless, stubborn, and you have the temperment of a disgruntled old man, but, no, you’re not horrible.”

Lexa smirked. “You’re disposition isn’t exactly sunny.”

“Yeah, well, maybe that makes it all the easier for us to butt heads. But Clarke… she complements you.” 

Lexa let out a rough bark of laughter. “This again. Anya, I don’t know if you’ve noticed but we  _ constantly  _ butt heads.”

“Because you’re both too immature to admit how you really feel about each other.”

“And what’s that, pray tell?” Lexa asked irritably, her eyes narrowed.

Anya gave her a pointed look. “I don’t think you need me to spell it out for you. It’s all in the way you’ve looked after her the past day.”

There was a biting edge to Lexa’s laughter. “Oh, what? Because I don’t want her to die of infection it suddenly means I have feelings for her? You might want to reevaluate your standards, Anya because you’ve set the bar pretty low.”

“Yeah, yeah, and you’re tripping right over it. I’ll be here when you fall flat on your face.” Anya said before getting up from the couch and walking out of the room. Lexa shook her head and let out an exasperated huff of air, wondering where Anya got her nerve. She’s known them for what, a couple days? And she already thinks she knows everything about them?

Lexa has known Clarke for almost a month now, has survived alongside her, fought beside her, saved her life, and now, has had  _ her  _ life saved by her. They’ve grown to become friends, good friends, the circumstances of the hard, cruel world they found themselves in driving them closer together, yes, but still just friends. Lexa wasn’t even capable of entertaining anything more, didn’t  _ want  _ to in fact. It was enough to care about Clarke, that had been hard enough to admit even to herself and to know that Clarke cared about her too. The thought of them being anything more was downright ridiculous, especially when considering the state of the world. The apocalypse is hardly the time to be thinking about romance, something that had been the last thing on her mind ever since walking into Costia’s apartment to find she had been sharing her bed with other girls for a year. She hasn’t had so much as a one-night stand since Costia. It was easier, simpler that way. No complications. 

Looking at the sleeping form on the bed in front of her, Lexa knew Clarke was a complication, was antithetical to the way Lexa had been living most of her life.

Still, when Clarke began stirring again, Lexa was helpless against her body’s automatic reaction as she walked across the room to sit by Clarke’s side once more, gave her another dose of antibiotics, and checked her temperature and her wound to see how she was improving. 

In her disoriented, feverish state of mind Clarke could forget that the outside world was in ruins, that dead people infected the lands as surely as bacteria had infected her blood, and of the live people that are left, many had lost their humanity, turned into monsters of a different kind. The only thing her mind could hold onto at the moment was Lexa; the soft-spoken words of reassurance, her gentle touch as she placed her palm against Clarke’s forehead, carefully unwrapped the bandage to check the wound below and rewrap it or helped Clarke sit up so could take her medicine. Most of all, the tenderness in those green eyes as they watched Clarke worriedly, betraying the facade of calm indifference that overlayed the rest of her features. As Clarke slipped back to sleep, it was to the thought that not everything in this new world was terrible. Not everything. 

/ /

The next morning, Clarke already felt much better and it showed. She could sit up in bed without any help, some color was back in her face, and the red streaks up her arm had retreated. When Lexa changed her bandage she was pleased to see the swelling had gone down and the wound looked much better. She also knew Clarke’s turnaround didn’t negate the need to continue on with the antibiotics; that if she were to stop taking them now the infection would come back, full force. That’s why, much to Clarke’s irritation, Lexa insisted she stay in bed in order to give her body more time to heal.

“But, Lexa, I feel a lot better and it won’t kill me to walk around a little, get some fresh air. In fact, it might do me some good!”

Lexa walked over to the one window in the room and pulled it open. “There, fresh air.”

Clarke glared at Lexa, who looked as if she was just waiting for a challenge. If that’s what Lexa wanted, Clarke could give it to her. “You know that’s not what I meant.”

“Tough.” Lexa spat, walking over to thrust the bowl of soup Clarke had placed on the bedside table back into her hands. “Now eat. Your body needs the sustenance.”

Clarke ate the soup begrudgingly. “You’d make a terrible doctor, you know. Absolutely no bedside manners.”

“That’s what the nurses are for,” 

“And that’s why nurses hate doctors.” Clarke countered.

“I think I liked it better when you were sleeping all day.”

Clarke rolled her eyes. “Yeah, so do I. You were actually nice to me.”

Lexa barked out a harsh laugh. “So now I’m mean because I don’t want you to push your luck and end up on death’s door again?

“I just know that if the situation was reversed, I’d have to restrain you in order to keep you from getting up the second you were physically able to. So maybe have a little sympathy for me here, Ms… nomad.”

Lexa raised her eyebrows. “That’s all you could come up with?”

“Shut up, I’m tired and sick.”

Lexa’s laugh had a little more humor in it this time. “Ah, so now you’re playing the sick card all of a sudden.” 

“Yep. If I’m relegated to this bed because I’m too sick to move, according to you at least, I’m milking it for all it’s worth.”

Lexa smirked, taking the empty bowl from Clarke.

“Maybe you should get me a bell, so if I need you I can ring you. Anya could pick up a cute little maid’s outfit for you; it’ll be a whole look.”

“Oh, I’m the maid now, huh? Not even the doctor?”

“Every princess needs a handmaid,” Clarke said in a mockingly loft voice. 

Lexa looked steadily at Clarke. “You’ll have to find someone else then because as I mentioned before, the Commander bows to no one.” 

“Awfully kinky for a couple of platonic gal pals, don’t you think?” Anya said upon entering the room, earning a harsh glare from Lexa and hearty laughter from Clarke. “It’s good to see you looking better, Clarke.”

“It’s good to be better. I would enjoy it even more though if I was allowed to leave the bed.”

Anya nodded knowingly. “Is Lexa here being a little overprotective?” 

“I’m not being overprotective. I’m just being smart. As a pre-med student and the daughter of a surgeon, you should know very well the dangers of infection, Clarke.” With that, Lexa walked out of the room.

Anya chuckled, stepping forward to sit on the side of Clarke’s bed. “Don’t let her get to you; she won’t admit it but she’s being hard on you because she cares. You should’ve seen her yesterday; it was like a worried mother tending her sick child.” Anya wrinkled her nose, a look of faint disgust on her face. “Actually, forget I  _ ever  _ used that analogy for you and Lexa.”

Clarke smiled, amused. “You need to watch it with the couple jokes; otherwise, Lexa might really snap.” 

“She doesn’t scare me. Besides it’s far too much fun to wile her up about it to ever stop.”

Clarke shrugged. “Suit yourself. But the door you’re knocking on leads to an empty house.”

Anya gave her a confused look, making Clarke roll her eyes.

“There’s nothing there,” Clarke explained. 

“There’s  _ something  _ there.

Clarke shook her head. 

“Ok, I expected the denial act from Lexa, sure. But I thought you would be more self-aware.” 

“Anya, there’s nothing to be self-aware  _ of.  _ Sure, we care about each other, we look after each other, but in case you haven’t noticed we fight. Like all the time. Just bickering and endless bickering. Some of it can be written off as playful teasing, maybe, but most of it is just us stepping all over each other’s buttons. If that’s your idea of  _ something  _ then you have a warped view of relationships and you should really work on that.” 

Anya laughed. “Did you minor in psychology or something?”

Clarke’s eyebrows furrowed.

“Because that was a textbook example of deflection.” 

Anya laughed even harder as the pillow hit her face and fell to the floor.

“How’s that for deflection?” Clarke asked smugly. 

“You’re lucky you’re sick, otherwise you might regret that.” 

/ /

Lexa came in 30 minutes later, giving Clarke her dose of antibiotics and some more aspirin for her pain.

“Thanks, Lex,” Clarke said sincerely. “For everything. I’m sorry I was grumpy before.”

Lexa gave her a small smile. “I get it. I’d hate staying in bed all day too. I see Anya gave you some entertainment at least.” She gestured to the stack of books on the bedside table.

“Yeah, it was nice of her. But whoever lived here before seemed to be really into romance novels. It’s not really my thing.”

Lexa’s smile widened. “You’re telling me. I only found one book that wasn’t some tripped out romance novel, although it's only a little better. It’s some predictable mystery you’d pick up in an airport bookstore if you had nothing else.” 

“Tripped out? In what way?” Clarke had read the descriptions of each of the books Anya had brought her and they all sounded like pretty generic love stories.

“It seems like Anya brought you the most normal ones… But you should see some of the others. Or maybe you shouldn’t. I kind of wish I hadn’t.” 

Clarke gaped at Lexa. “It can’t be that bad.”

“It’s so bad, that I honestly don’t understand how whoever lived here wasn’t embarrassed about other people knowing they were into-” Lexa stopped, looking too embarrassed to even say it.

“Lexa.” Clarke urged. “Tell me.”

“I think it’s something you should just see for yourself.” 

Clarke watched Lexa walk out of the room, only to reenter a couple minutes later holding a book with the front cover held against her side. She wordlessly turned it over so Clarke could see the illustration, a shirtless woman laying across the forefront, with a Tyrannosaurus-Rex behind her. The title read  _ Taken by the T-Rex.  _ Clarke blinked at it for multiple seconds before looking up at Lexa, who was biting her bottom lip to keep from laughing.

“Lexa, what am I looking at?”

Lexa released her lip, unable to hold back the laughter any longer. “You are looking at dinosaur erotica.”

Clarke’s face contorted into a look of utter horror. “You’re… You’re telling me a woman has  _ sex  _ with a T-Rex in that book?”

“Presumably. I am far too scared to actually find out for sure.”

Clarke blinked a few more times, trying to process the information. “How would that… How could…” She closed her mouth, seemingly unable to follow either train of thoughts.

“I can only hope that whoever wrote this did it as some really weird joke, and the owners of this house bought it for the same reason. Although I can’t imagine why they’d keep it with a bunch of other similar books in their living room if it was just a joke.” Lexa shook her head, grimacing. 

“And you’re telling me there’s more like this?” 

“Well, there’s no more dinosaur erotica but, yes, Anya and I have found some other novels with… unique premises, scattered here and there. Like a scavenger hunt from hell.”

Clarke looked distastefully at the books stacked on her bedside table.

“Do you want me to get rid of them?” Lexa asked.

“Please. I really don’t need any reminder that whoever lived here was into some weird shit sexually.” 

Lexa smirked as she picked up the books and brought them back into the living room.

“Now, there _really_ isn’t anything to do,” Clarke complained. “If it wasn’t the apocalypse right now, I could watch Netflix, or draw, or go on my phone. I’m just not used to all this downtime, with nothing to do, you know? Before we came to the library, we were always walking, heading somewhere. We barely ever stood still long enough to get bored. Which is weird because all I  _ wanted  _ then was to have a moment where we could stay still; I would have welcomed the feeling of boredom because it meant there were no walkers, no bad people to deal with. Now, that I’m relegated to this bed, I’m beginning to regret what I wished for. At least when you’re on the move, fighting walkers and other people, there’s hardly a moment to stop and think. Now all I’m left with is my thoughts.”

Lexa had sat down on the side of the bed as Clarke talked, her face solemn. “And what are you thinking about?”

“A lot. We all almost died. And I’ve killed two people now. And Ontari, she- she died right on top of me, inches from me. I saw the life go out of her eyes. I know she was a horrible person and she had to die and I don’t regret killing her since it meant saving you… but it’s hard learning what I’m capable of.” 

“I know,” Lexa said quietly, her gaze piercing in its intensity. “And I know it doesn’t always help to know how many people you saved by doing what you did. I know it didn’t help me, especially not at the end. People, they find out I serve and they think of me as this hero. But they don’t really think of what it cost me to be that for them.” 

“So how do you cope with it then? How do you reconcile who you are with who you had to be in order to survive?”

“I haven’t. That’s my problem.” Lexa admitted.

“Well… maybe we can figure it out together.”

Lexa’s lips twitched into a brief smile. “Maybe.” 

/  / 

Lexa walked up to Anya, who was napping on the couch in the living room and shook her awake. She was greeted with angry groans and a swatting hand before Anya finally rolled onto her back to glare sleepily at Lexa. 

“What?” Anya asked.

“I need to go out and get something. While you went out to get Clarke’s antibiotics did you see any stores that would have art supplies?”

Anya raised her eyebrows. “I didn’t know you were the creative type.”

“I’m not.” 

Anya smiled, pleased. “Ah, I get it. Ok.”

“Anya.”

“Is Clarke artistic by any chance?” 

Lexa closed her eyes and took a deep breath, trying to calm herself. “She’s bored and bored Clarke is irritable so yes, I want to go out and get her some art supplies to occupy her time so she’ll spend less time getting on my last nerve.”

“Whatever helps you sleep at night… Commander.” Anya could tell by the severe look Lexa was giving her that Lexa really was on her last nerve, and decided to redirect. “I’m pretty sure I saw a Michael’s downtown, about a 15-minute drive from here. Just hook a right and it’s a straight shot.”

“Thank you,” Lexa replied. “While I’m gone can you make sure to check up on Clarke, make sure she’s ok? She’s asleep now but if she wakes up while I’m gone just tell her I went out for more supplies and I’ll be back soon.”

“Got it.” 

Lexa picked up the car keys, the empty shoulder bag still on the table with its contents spread around it, and a rifle. She hadn’t been outside for a day and a half and it felt good to get her legs moving and breathe in the fresh air. She felt bad that Clarke couldn’t enjoy the sunny day outside, knowing she would appreciate it, but Lexa also knew it was for her own good. And hopefully being able to create art again would make it easier for Clarke, give her something to focus her mind on other than the horrors of the last couple days. 

Lexa had never heard of Michael’s, but it was easy enough to spot by its large red signage. She pulled up to the curb, not bothering to properly park, and stepped out of the car. Three walkers that had been wandering aimlessly up the sidewalk turned around at the sound of her closing the car door, making their way over to her with far more purpose. She unsheathed her knife, slicing the first walker’s head in half with one brisk slash and let the forward momentum drive the knife into the head of the second walker. He collapsed, almost bringing the knife down with him, had Lexa not yanked the blade roughly up and out of his flesh, backing away a few steps to keep the third from attacking her. She neatly decapitated the final walker’s head. Lexa turned to watch his head as it hit the ground and rolled down the slightly sloped sidewalk until it came to an abrupt stop after veering a little too far to the left and hitting the wheel of a car parked half on the curb. The image was grotesque, something she’d expect out of a Quentin Tarantino movie, perhaps, not in real life. 

Lexa walked into the store and automatically felt overwhelmed by the sheer amount of  _ stuff  _ this place sold. She had no idea there was simply this much involved in creating a piece of art, that you could have so many choices of mediums in one room. Charcoal, oil pastels, colored pencils, crayons, markers, pen, paint, which breaks down even further into acrylic, oil, or watercolor. Each item seemed to be available in multiple different brands and Lexa had no idea which one was superior. 

Lexa was just glad she could ignore the crafts section of the store entirely. She wasn’t sure she could navigate all those ribbons, pipe cleaners, buttons, thread, yarn, and other sewing supplies without losing her mind. She began to doubt her idea to come here, having completely underestimated the sheer number of tools that went into creating art. Lexa felt completely out of her element and wondered if it would be better to bring Clarke here so she could pick out what she liked. She was starting to understand how some men might feel accompanying their girlfriends while they shopped for makeup. It was like an entirely different world.

Lexa had to roll her eyes at how ridiculous she was being. She was in the goddamn Marines, she could take down a large group of walkers, with fucking  _ style, _ thank you very much, and two nights ago she successfully sutured up a nicked artery, despite her meager medical training; surely she can buy some art supplies for Clarke.

She thought through it practically. Paints were incredibly impractical because it was messy, required canvas, and needed time to dry. So that was out. She found a set of charcoal pencils that came in a compact container and slipped it into the bag. Thinking Clarke might like some color, she added a nice looking pack of colored pencils, a sleeve of oil pastels, and some markers. When she came to a shelf of sketchbooks, she grabbed three of the nicest looking options and stuffed them in her pack. She took one last cursory look around the store, ensuring she hadn’t forgotten anything before walking back to her car, with a satisfied smirk on her face. Mission accomplished.

/ /

When Clarke woke up and Anya told her that Lexa had left to go pick up more supplies, despite all rationality that told her she was being ridiculous, Clarke feared Lexa had left for good. It hardly made much sense; Lexa had been with her this long and they were on pretty good terms at the moment; why would Lexa all of a sudden abandon her without so much as waking her up to say goodbye, just when it seemed like they were getting closer? No matter how much she tried to convince herself that her paranoia was utterly unfounded, she was unable to find any relief until she heard the sound of the front door opening and closing and ws rewarded seconds later with the sight of Lexa’s head gingerly poking out of the doorway.

“Hey.” She greeted softly. “Did I wake you?”

“Not at all,” Clarke replied, hoping her relief at seeing Lexa wasn’t completely obvious. “How was your supply run? Any trouble?”

Lexa smiled, more to herself than Clarke. “There was some trouble, yes.” At Clarke’s worried expression, she hurried on, “Not of the walker or human variety, don’t worry. I mean I did come across some walkers but they were easy to deal with. But, um, yeah, it was fine.”

Clarke narrowed her eyes at Lexa, watching as she nervously wrung the strap of the shoulder bag she wore, entirely unaccustomed to seeing a fidgety, rambling Lexa. “Are you ok?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?” Lexa asked, eyebrows furrowed, as she walked over to sit on the other side of the bed, letting the bag come to rest beside her. Clarke could hear things knocking together inside and wondered if she had picked up some more soup. 

“Is there any food in there?” Clarke asked, pointing at the bag.

“No, there’s no food. Why? Are you hungry? I can go get you something.” Lexa promptly stood up, the suddenness of the action startling Clarke.

“Lexa, hold on. What is going on with you? I don’t think I’ve ever seen you this jumpy. Is something wrong? Did you run into someone while you were out and you’re not telling me because you don’t want me to worry? Because I’m worried. So if anything happened-”

Lexa stopped moving towards the living room and stepped closer to the bed, the exasperation she had felt earlier at the store for acting so ridiculous coming back, full bloom. She had intended to come in here and simply hand over the art supplies to Clarke, without making a big deal of it, because it  _ wasn’t  _ a big deal. But seeing Clarke’s expectant expression on her face, the combination of relief and excitement as she walked through the bedroom door, had thrown her, suddenly made her feel self-conscious about her impulse decision to go out and loot a bunch of art supplies just to see the way Clarke’s face would light up, her eyes bright, and smiling like a kid on Christmas morning. 

“Clarke, no, nothing happened, I promise. Just… just open the bag.” 

Clarke looked unsurely at Lexa before redirecting her confusion at the bag still resting on the other side of the bed. She snagged the strap and pulled it until the bag was half on her lap, unzipping it after another glance at Lexa. 

Lexa bit her lip as she focussed all her attention on Clarke’s face as she pulled open the bag and took a look inside at its contents. 

Clarke took one look at the interior of the bag, needing a few seconds to process that it was indeed various art supplies inside, before taking out each item one by one: colored pencils, markers, oil pastels, a small black case that revealed a nice looking set of charcoal pencils when opened, and three sketchbooks. Lexa, the poster child for utilization, who had little patience for anything that didn’t strictly relate to survival, had gone out to get Clarke art supplies. 

“You were saying earlier how bored you were and that if you were home you’d be on your phone or watching netflix or creating art, and two of those are out of the question so I thought I’d get you some materials. And I remember you telling me how much you miss art anyway. I hope I got the right things. If not, maybe you can give me a list and I can go back and exchange-”

“Lexa.” Clarke cut her off, unable to listen to any more of Lexa’s nervous rambling without giving the woman some reassurance. “Everything you got me is perfect.”

Lexa let out a breath of relief at Clarke’s words, at the affectionate look in her eyes. Lexa gave her a slight nod, coaching herself to act more collected, damn it. “Good.”

“Seriously, Lex. This is… this is really thoughtful of you. Thank you.” Clarke knew she was probably grinning like an idiot but she didn’t care. “I don’t even know what to say. I’ve missed drawing so much.”

Clarke looked at each item Lexa had gotten her, flipping through the sketchbook to feel the weight of the paper in between her fingertips, studying each color of markers, colored pencil, and pastel, already envisioning how to incorporate the variety of hues. Lexa watched the caring, almost reverent way Clarke handled everything, a look of wonder in her eyes as if she was holding something magical. 

“I think I’m going to take a page out of Anya’s book and have a quick nap. I didn’t sleep well last night.” Lexa said and Clarke looked up from studying her new charcoal pencils. 

“Right, I’m sure that can be largely attributed to me,” Clarke replied sheepishly.

Lexa shook her head, a fond smile playing on her lips. “All that matters is that you’re ok.  _ Are  _ you going to be ok?”

Clarke returned her smile. “I’ll be fine, Lex. I have plenty to occupy my time with, thanks to you.”

“Let me just check your temperature and your arm before I go,” Lexa said before placing her palm against Clarke’s forehead, which had cooled immensely compared to last night.

Clarke watched as Lexa carefully unwrapped her bandage, revealing the hastily stitched gash in her arm. “The redness has gone down a lot,” Clarke commented and Lexa nodded in agreement. 

“How much does it hurt?”

“It’s uncomfortable,” Clarke admitted. “But nothing I can’t handle.” 

Lexa smirked, looking up from Clarke’s wound with a knowing stare. “If the girl I met three weeks ago could only see you today.”

Clarke hummed thoughtfully. “I don’t think I’d recognize myself. How is that even possible in a month?” 

Although it was intended more as a rhetorical question, Lexa answered anyway as she rewrapped Clarke’s arm. “Death is an agent of change. You move forward or you get left behind.”

Clarke snorted. “Moving forward? Last I checked the world has ground to a halt.”

“Perhaps. But we haven’t. More and more we’re all learning how to cope with our new environment. Three weeks ago, Ontari would’ve been able to defeat you in a matter of seconds, yet it is her that is dead and it is  _ you  _ that walked away the victor.”

“If that is how we measure progress these days, by our abilities in which to kill, then I want no part of it.”

“You have no choice, Clarke.” Lexa retorted harshly. “If you want to live.”

Clarke shook her head as she stared ruefully back at Lexa. “This isn’t living.”

Lexa narrowed her eyes to keep from rolling them. “It’s all we’ve got right now.”

“It’s not enough.” 

When Lexa turned away with a scoffing huff of breath, Clarke grabbed her wrist softly, imploring Lexa to look at her, only continuing when green eyes met blue. “You must want more out of life than this, Lexa. Otherwise, what are we even fighting for? I mean, you were a Marine, Lexa. Would you have served, put your life on the line, if it wasn’t to serve some greater purpose? If you were just fighting for the sake of it?”

Lexa’s eyes flashed as she pulled her arm out of Clarke’s grasp. “Don’t talk to me about fighting in a war as if you know anything about it. You know  _ nothing _ .” She spat through her clenched teeth. 

“Then tell me. Tell me what happened that made you give up.”

Lexa’s eyebrows went up, almost of their own accord, as she stared at Clarke in shock. “Give up? You think I’ve given up? I’ve been through things that most people wouldn’t be able to handle but I’m still here. I’ve lost  _ everything _ , and I. Am. Still. Here.” She paused, trying to get her anger in check, knowing losing it would be a terrible idea, that it could open up doors she wanted to remain shut. “Just because I don’t have some fairytale view of the world doesn’t mean I’ve given up. In fact, it means I’m far more grounded than you ever could be, because the longer you hold on to the idea that everything is just going to fix itself and be ok again, the harder it’ll be for you when it finally settles in that, in real life, the cavalry doesn’t come and everything can’t be wrapped up in some neat happy ending. There is no justice, there is no order to things, shit just fucking happens and it’s up to you to clean up the mess.” Or be swallowed by it, Lexa thought to herself, the idea being far too close to home to say it aloud. She gave a stunned Clarke one more look before storming out of the room.

Clarke knew it was stupid, and Lexa would likely only be angrier for it, but she couldn’t just stay in bed without attempting to fix things between them, especially when they had been getting along pretty well. That’s how Clarke found herself getting out of bed on her own, a bit wobbly on her feet from laying down so long, but feeling ok so far. She made her way into the living room.

“Clarke, what are you doing out of bed?” Anya asked as she was coming down the stairs. “Are you feeling ok?”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Clarke replied automatically. “Do you know where Lexa is?”

“Ah, is that why you’re suddenly up and at it? I should have guessed it had something to do with the fact that Lexa stalked past me on the stairs without so much as a glance and disappeared into some room upstairs. Although, that sort of behavior is pretty par for the course when it comes to her, not that I’m complaining. She’s much more tolerable when she isn’t speaking.”

Clarke rolled her eyes before heading up the stairs herself.

“You need help?”

“I’m good.”

“Alright, well, I’ll be down here. Holler if you need anything. Or if Lexa’s fragile control over her temper finally snaps and you get caught in the crosshairs of pent up rage.”

The sad thing was, that might not be too far from the truth. Lexa was pissed at her and Clarke probably deserved it. 

She knocked on each door, her efforts proving fruitless until a voice called out from the last one down the hall.

“Anya, I’m not in the mood.”

“Are you in the mood if it’s not Anya?” Clarke countered, hoping to start things off on a light note.

Seconds later, the door opened, revealing a surprised looking Lexa, who’s expression quickly changed into one of impatient concern. “Clarke, what are you doing up here and out of bed?”

Clarke took that as a sign that she could enter the room and brushed past Lexa. “My arm is hurt, not my leg. I’m perfectly capable of walking.” Her point was undercut by the fact that she had to promptly sit on the chair behind the desk, feeling too fatigued to stand any longer. 

“Still, you should be in bed.”

“Are you saying that because I’m injured or because you don’t want to see me right now? Because if you really don’t, I’ll give you your space. I just didn’t like how we left things downstairs.”

Lexa sighed. “Well, then, you could have called for me.”

“See? This is where a bell would have come in handy.”

Lexa rolled her eyes as she walked over to stand by the window so she could look down on the street below. The ghost town below. Haunted by the lingering memory of the people who used to live here, who used to call this place home. A bike left carelessly on a front lawn. Lexa could imagine a kid of 12 years old, in such a rush to go home he or she couldn't be bothered to properly put their bike away, despite how many times mom or dad told them that’s how things get stolen. She wonders what it must be like to be so young, so carefree. Maybe that was her problem; she never had much of a childhood. She never had time to be innocent, naive, to look at the world around her, almost daunting in its unimaginable size, with wonder. Even her fondest memories, the early days of her youth, the time she spent with her mother, are tainted, made sour by what had happened later at the meager age of seven. That had been the catalyst for all the other bad events to follow, and she had been too young to do anything to prevent it, to even suspect that one afternoon, after being sent out by her mother to play outside, that she would come home to… 

“I’m sorry.” Two words from Clarke brought her out of her thoughts, out of her painful visit down memory lane. She had nearly forgotten Clarke was in the room with her. She didn’t need Clarke to elaborate to know what she was apologizing for, didn’t even need to turn away from the window to read the regret that surely resided in her eyes. 

“Don’t be,” Lexa replied, her voice unfocused, her mind otherwise preoccupied. “You were right.”

Clarke recoiled slightly in her surprise. She hadn’t been sure what to expect as she made her way up here, but it wasn’t this. A quiet, reflective Lexa. 

“To answer your question, it was a lot of things, compounded with one another, that made me give up on the idea that life was… that life could be more than fighting to get by. That you could enjoy it, be happy, have a place in the world, something to call home. It sounds cheesy but, it’s what we all want, isn’t it? Somewhere we belong? I thought I had found it with the Marines, but I had been dead wrong about that. I thought I found it with Costia but, well, you know how that turned out. And I thought I had it with my mom. She’s where the rest of it all started. She was my watershed moment. Or, rather, her death was.”

Clarke’s heart nearly broke at the admission; she had suspected Lexa’s mother was dead, based on the way she spoke about her, but hearing it was much different than thinking it. And the worst thing was how much Clarke could understand, just in the pain underlying those last three words. She could understand because she had lost her father too, far earlier than she should have, and could still feel the throbbing ache his death had left. She knew far too well what Lexa was feeling right now and that’s how she knew the last thing Lexa needed were hollow platitudes. Right now she just needed someone to listen. 

“The worst part about it is you can’t even realize it until much, much later, when you’ve had far too much time sitting alone in bars or camped out on your couch, with nothing to do but map out your life in the hopes of pinpointing the exact moment when things went wrong for you. As if you could change anything.”

“What would you change? If you could?” Clarke asked softly.

There was silence, in which Lexa continued staring out the window. It was easier for her to direct her attention outwards than to focus too much on the turmoil inside her, or to look at the care pouring out of Clarke’s eyes. 

“I wish I could have seen the signs. Prevented it somehow. Instead of being so clueless.”

“You were a kid, Lex.”

Lexa nodded. “A kid who found their mother hanging from a pipe.”

Clarke sucked in her breath as if she had been punched in the gut. 

“The worst part was how angry I felt towards her, then how guilty I would feel about being angry. But it’s not like I could help it. Every time some shitty foster parent yelled at me, or beat me, or starved me out, I couldn’t help but feel this… this irrational  _ rage  _ towards her, because it was ultimately what she did that landed me in those homes in the first place. It’s not like I could get angry at the people beating me. And being angry at yourself isn’t quite as satisfying, is it? There’s nothing like having someone to blame for all your problems. And it’s pretty easy when that person is dead.” 

Lexa had fully turned away from Clarke, and Clarke stood there, unsure of what she should do. She wanted to go to Lexa, wrap her arms around her and hold her as she cried, but Clarke wasn’t sure Lexa would want that; if it might only make her feel worse. But maybe being alone would be the worst thing for her; she has been alone for far too long as it is. Clarke stepped slowly towards Lexa until she was beside her, the aching in her chest increasing at the sight of Lexa turning her head away in her shame. Right then, she looked so small, and Clarke had a glimpse of what Lexa must have looked like as a young child, terrified and confused at what was happening around her, unable to understand why it was her mom abandoned her, only knowing that that was what had happened. People must have told her about death, that it was something that happened to everyone at some point, but Clarke supposed that as young as Lexa had been, she must have grasped that her mother’s death was different; it was something  _ she  _ chose, not something that had been chosen for her. It was easy for Clarke to imagine the betrayal a young Lexa might have felt; it was the same feeling of betrayal Clarke had felt upon finding out her father had died so that other people, complete strangers to her, could live. It was only made worse by the fact that not only did Lexa clearly not have another parent to fall back on (or even a relative who could’ve taken her in), she had to deal with the knowledge that her mother's choice to take her own life had unknowingly placed her daughter in the care of strangers who didn’t hesitate to take advantage of a vulnerable kid. 

“Lexa.” Clarke quietly urged, and when Lexa still wouldn't look at her, Clarke placed her hand against her jaw and gently turned her face towards hers. Lexa's eyes shined with unshed tears and her bottom lip quivered with the force of the emotion she was struggling against. 

Clarke met her gaze, wanting to let Lexa know she was here, in any capacity she needed her. She did a terrible job containing her surprise when Lexa pulled her into a hug, burying her face in her neck, being mindful of Clarke’s hurt arm even in her upset state. Clarke could feel her breath hot against her skin, sending unwanted shivers down her spine, and then the wetness of her tears as Lexa began crying in earnest, her body shaking against Clarke’s with the force of her sobs. Clarke could tell Lexa was trying desperately to hold herself back and Clarke rubbed her back soothingly, letting her know it was ok to let go, that she didn’t have to hold it together any longer. Clarke could help her carry the weight. 


End file.
